


1,000 Sarahs

by nubianamy, supergreak



Series: The Donutverse [10]
Category: Glee
Genre: Angst, Donutverse, Family Drama, Female Friendship, Gen, Polyamory, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-08
Updated: 2012-04-28
Packaged: 2017-10-27 02:00:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 39,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/290435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nubianamy/pseuds/nubianamy, https://archiveofourown.org/users/supergreak/pseuds/supergreak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sarah Puckerman is the most annoying girl in the sixth grade, and Frances can't figure her out.  Friendship, preteen angst.  Part of the Donutverse; runs concurrent with Bending in the Archer's Hand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Before

**Author's Note:**

> This story has been percolating in my brain for months, and it finally exploded into multiple chapters last night. It was inspired by the fantastic song [1,000 Sarahs](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nr_gvlN8qA4) by Eddie From Ohio. It follows up on Kurt's comment to Finn at the donut shop that "I think Sarah can do what you do... someday." The question of Sarah's sexuality has not yet been determined, perhaps not even to Sarah, so stick around.
> 
> There are no significant spoilers in the first chapter, but BIG SPOILERS for Bending in the Archer's Hand in future chapters, so keep that in mind if you are behind in the Donutverse.
> 
> Sarah has been perhaps the most favorite character of the whole Donutverse (second would be Toby, I believe), so I'm glad to provide her with her own story, at last. She will also feature in the next Donutverse story.
> 
> Enjoy!  
> -amy

The club posters had only gone up on the walls of Lima North Middle School the day before, and already they were covered with graffiti. Frances stared at the black marker scribbles in frustration, then started to take down the posters one by one.

"What are you doing?" Sarah asked, stopping beside her. She had on a purple cardigan over a grey ruffled skirt, Keens with knee-high rainbow socks and a knit Ugly Doll hat. From her earlobes dangled miniature crystal skulls.

"Somebody ruined my ecology club posters," Frances huffed. "I'm taking them down."

"Why?" Sarah tapped the wall with the toe of her shoe. "Seems like they're just going to ruin the next set you put up too."

She was probably right, but Frances didn't want to admit defeat. She scowled. "I don't want them to think they can get away with it. Besides... I can't stand to see them up there. It just makes me angry."

"You're only going to make them do it again," Sarah pointed out, calm and rational as anything.

Frances stared at the floor, feeling the tension in her arms and back. Why did Sarah have to be _right_ all the time? She was so infuriating. Sarah would never know what it felt like to be _ordinary._

Frances knew she was ordinary; she didn't need anybody reminding her of this. Her whole day was chock full of reminders, from the blank stares of other students as she walked down the hall to the disdainful sneers of the popular girls in the bathroom as they applied their liquid-powder coverup and glitter lip gloss. Her mother would never buy her glitter lip gloss. And even if she did, Frances would never manage to wear it without feeling like an idiot. Sarah sometimes wore glitter lip gloss, but on her it would never seem pretentious. People would just think it was _cool_.

That's what irked Frances most about Sarah. She completely defied categorization. She wasn't popular, even though most everyone respected her, and she wasn't a jock, even though everyone knew if she was up in kickball that people should stand out of her way. She wasn't a nerd, though she was a member of Science Decathlon and could hold her own in a debate with Mr. Loughner, who scared the bejesus out of Frances. She wasn't fashionable, though nobody looked cooler in their clothes than Sarah did in her eclectic combinations of vintage and kitsch. She wasn't tall, but she _stood_ as though she were.

And she wasn't even that _pretty,_ but her eyes were intense, and she had a hilarious laugh that made everyone want to laugh along, and a strong voice that made people sit up and pay attention. Boys _and_ girls, though Sarah didn't seem to care too much about boys, even though plenty of girls in the sixth grade did. Sarah was slim and small and hadn't yet gotten round at the hip or butt or bust like Frances and some of other girls had. Frances wished she hadn't either. It caused the boys to stare at her in a way that made her feel uncomfortable.

But Sarah didn't care about girls, either. She didn't travel in the packs that visited the restroom together, or identify with any of the rival groups. She was a loner, an independent being. She didn't seem to need anybody or anything and it just made Frances so... so... _irritated._

Frances looked at Sarah's striped toes protruding from her Keens. "Aren't your feet cold?" she snapped, trying to sound derisive. "It's December."

"No," she said, wiggling her toes.

Sarah didn't seem to care at _all_ when somebody spoke to her like that. It didn't make her angry or want to cry or any of the things that Frances felt when people put her down or laughed at her. Frances didn't get that. It made her feel even more angry - and somehow guilty, like there was something wrong with _her_ for not knowing how to handle people the way Sarah could.

Sarah looked at Frances' calf-high boots. "Those are nice," she said.

"Thanks," said Frances politely, before she moved on down the hall to the next poster. Her mom had bought the boots for her. She bought all Frances' clothes, made sure she was dressed appropriately, that she had all the correct things to wear so she wouldn't stand out too much. Sometimes Frances wished she could wear something different, but she knew it was too risky. If she wanted to stay comfortably in the running for the popular crowd, she had to dress right, and act the right way, and be the kind of person people wanted to be friends with. Not like Sarah.

Frances stalked down the hall toward the next offending poster, cursing it under her breath, and watched Sarah dig in her oversized bag for something. Sarah was alone in the hall, which wasn't surprising. She was friendly enough with everyone, but she didn't have any _friends._ Frances never saw her hanging out with other girls at the mall. Frances always ate lunch with the same group of girls, the same girls she'd been friends with, the girls in Sunday school and Girl Scouts and class government, ever since fourth grade. But Sarah ate lunch with different people all the time, kind of rotating tables, kids from the yearbook or from the volleyball team or from band, even with seventh or eighth graders. And she didn't usually _talk_ to anyone anyway. She was mostly doing things like reading a comic book or painting with watercolors or playing a recorder on a string around her neck or something else crazy like that. Frances' mother would never let her wear a recorder on a string, and Frances never would have been brave enough to play it in front of everybody, even if she had.

Sarah's mother apparently didn't care much about what Sarah wore, or what she did, or _anything._ It was almost as though Sarah's mother didn't exist, except for the things Frances' mother had told her friends, things Frances had overheard when she wasn't supposed to be listening. "Ruth Puckerman's dating another new man again," she'd hear, and the disapproval in her mother's voice was as bad as she'd ever shown about something Frances had done. "Hope she hangs on to him longer than the _last_ one. I swear, she goes through men like tea bags." She had heard the word, spoken in a hushed tone, always preceded by a pause - _slut_ \- and it felt like a terrible slap. It made Frances feel thankful to have the mother she did - and then worried, if anyone ever talked about _her_ mother that way. Not that her mother would be dating anyone; she barely spoke to her father, but at least they were still married.

Sarah's father had apparently run off to be a _rock star_ or something insane like that. It was no wonder Sarah had been allowed to pierce her ears seven times on one side and six times on the other. One of them was even way up at the top, and Frances shuddered every time she saw it, because it _had_ to have hurt. She'd once seen Sarah thread a chain through the piercing and down to dangle from a loop at the bottom, and she didn't even flinch. It had given Frances a crazy kind of crawling feeling in her gut to watch her do that. Frances wouldn't be allowed to pierce her ears - even just the regular one pierce in the earlobe kind of piercing - until she turned twelve.

Frances took down two more posters and watched out of the corner of her eye as Sarah found the thing she was digging for, which happened to be a battered cell phone. She flipped it open and called a one-dial number, then chattered happily to someone named Kurt. Sarah never got picked up by her mother from school; instead it was usually her brother, the one with the scary mohawk. Sometimes it was other boys, one who was almost too pretty to be believed, and another who was tall and had dreamy eyes. Frances wondered what it would be like to have a brother.

The next poster wouldn't come down, and Frances tugged at it, bending her manicured nails over the edge, and the card stock ran along the corner of her nail, slicing into her flesh. She hissed, jerking her hand back as the sting began, and blood immediately began to well up from the paper cut and ran in a rivulet down her wrist toward her white angora sweater.

"Tip it forward," Sarah said, and Frances looked wildly at her. Sarah snapped her phone closed and tucked it into one of her voluminous pockets as she strode toward Frances, holding out her hand. She took Frances' arm and bent it at the elbow so her hand dangled loosely from her wrist. The blood retraced its path along her arm, avoiding her sweater sleeve, and dripped instead off the tip of her finger, making three large splashes on the hallway floor.

"Put it in your mouth," Sarah advised.

"W-what?" Frances stuttered, blinking stupidly at the red line flowing down her skin. It didn't look real, the color, or the way it kept coming out of her finger, spilling over like that.

"Your finger. You have to stop the bleeding." Sarah clamped down on Frances' wrist, hard, and Frances made a noise of protest.

"That's gross. Don't you know what's growing in your -"

" _Put_ it in your _mouth,"_ Sarah said, her voice low and harsh, and she bent Frances' elbow and laid the bloody finger on her lips, and Frances' mouth closed over the finger immediately, her eyes riveted to Sarah's. "Do you have a band-aid?"

Frances, tasting the copper tang of her own blood, shook her head. There were no words for what she was thinking about Sarah just then, but not one bit of it was good.

Sarah sighed and looked away, releasing her gaze, and Frances staggered back a little. Sarah immediately took her elbow and helped her to sit on the floor, disregarding Frances' short skirt and the dirty linoleum. "Wait there."

Frances couldn't have moved if she'd wanted to, so she just sat against the wall, feeling the ridge of the cut with her tongue, not really wanting to but unable to stop probing it, making it sting. Sarah walked back down to where her bag was sitting and slung it over her shoulder, bringing it back to sprawl on the floor next to Frances. She dug around in the outside pocket until she found a metal box of band-aids. They had pictures of Tweetie Bird on them.

"Let me see," Sarah said, taking her hand and pulling it out of Frances' mouth. It slid out with a little _pop,_ and Frances protested again. She thought vaguely that it was weird that she'd objected to putting it _in,_ and now she was objecting to taking it _out,_ and what did that _mean?_ But Sarah was holding the finger up to her eye, inspecting it critically, fiercely, as though she could fix whatever was wrong with it just by glaring at it the right way. Then she pursed her lips - today devoid of lip gloss - and _blew_ on Frances' finger, right on the skin around the cut, and up and around the pad, and it made Frances flinch and shudder, what she was doing, but she couldn't ask her to stop. She couldn't say anything at all.

The blood was coming out of the cut again, but Sarah was peeling off the wrapper on the Tweetie Bird band-aid and pressing it to the wound, pressing hard enough to make it hurt. It really did hurt, it stung something awful, but Frances was still mute, under the spell of Sarah's ministrations.

Sarah held her hand up by the arm, like a torch. "Keep it above your heart," she said. "You should wash that out when you get home."

"Okay," Frances said. Her voice sounded funny to her ears, always higher than Sarah's, but right now it was _much_ higher, and a little shrill and anxious. Sarah's eyes traced a map of Frances' face, looking for something, and she tightened her lips.

"You have a ride home?" she asked, her voice softer now.

"I'm walking," she said. "Just around the block."

Sarah shook her head. "Nuh-uh. We're giving you a ride." She took Frances' arm and towed her down the hall. "Come on. Let's get your stuff."

"My locker's -" Frances started to say, but she realized they were already there, that they had walked right to it, and she looked at Sarah, confused. Sarah was looking back at her in what seemed like amusement.

"Dude, we've been in the same class together since kindergarten," she said. "I think I know where your locker is by now. Alphabetical by last name, right? Preston... Puckerman."

The word _dude_ sounded strange coming from Sarah's lips, in Sarah's silky voice, and it shook Frances out of her spell a little. She caught herself smiling at Sarah and switched back to a scowl. "I know," she said. "Of course."

Sarah waited while Frances got her stuff, then led her out to the parking lot, taking her arm again, the one attached to the bleeding finger currently held aloft like she was making an important point. _Aha,_ said the finger. She wasn't sure what she was supposed to be realizing, but one very obvious thing was clear: Sarah was a bossy pain in the rear end, and she wasn't going to cut it out until Frances did something about it. She just wasn't sure what she should _do._

They found a shiny blue SUV waiting for them at the curb, and Sarah helped Frances into the back seat without hesitation. "This is Frances," she called to the driver. "We're taking her home."

"Her home or ours?" said a light voice, and Frances looked up in surprise to see the driver was the beautiful boy who'd picked up Sarah at least once before. He took note of her declaiming finger. "Are you okay?" he asked her, nodding to the band-aid.

 _I have no idea,_ thought Frances, but she said, "Yes, thank you."

"I'm Kurt," said the boy. "Where do you live?"

She gave him directions, and he nodded again. Frances watched then as Sarah leaned across the front aisle of the car and gave Kurt a great big hug before fastening her seat belt. Then she turned to the back, checking Frances' belt before saying, "Okay," to Kurt.

Frances felt dizzy, because the Sarah of school who walked through the halls looking like she didn't need anybody or anything didn't quite fit with the Sarah who'd hugged this boy, just now, and smiled at him like she'd never loved anybody quite like she loved him. She didn't fit, and yet she _did._

"How do you know each other?" she asked, because it was on her mind, and because she felt like she had to say something, other than _who the heck are you, and what did you do with Sarah?_

Kurt was mostly focusing on his driving, but the look he shot Sarah was too long and too meaningful to miss. Sarah shrugged.

"I'm her brother's boyfriend," he said.

"Oh," Frances said. She felt the sweat start behind her neck and drip down her neck, just as the blood on her finger had slid, and she put a hand up to her neck to stop it before it could freeze on her skin. _Boyfriend._ She could imagine her mother having a few words to say about _that._

Sarah hopped out of the SUV as they pulled into her driveway and helped her into the house, and there was no way Frances could legitimately tell her not to, because she didn't want to tell her - she kind of would have given anything to have Sarah stop touching her - but it seemed like such an ordinary thing, she didn't feel like she could.

"You'll be all right," Sarah said. "Remember, above your heart."

"Okay," Frances said.

Sarah went back to the SUV and got in on the passenger side door, and Frances felt herself slip out of Sarah's life as easily as she'd entered the car. Sarah drove on down the road, on with the beautiful boy, Kurt, back to her brother who had a _boyfriend,_ while Frances stood on her porch, her ordinary self, changed only by the ache in her finger and the sense that she was missing something important.

"How was your day, honey?" said her mom, opening a can of diet soda and setting it in front of her at the table. "What happened to your finger?"

"I got a paper cut," she said. The image of the blood welling up and traveling toward her sweater reverberated in her memory. A little blood stain would not have been the disaster of the century, but would have at least been crucially important - would had been, at least, before she'd been touched by the words _put it in your mouth_ and Sarah's hands on her. She drank the soda without tasting it and got out her homework.

It was a quiet night, just the three of them, her dad coming home from the office a few minutes before dinner was ready, smiling tiredly at her mom as he set his briefcase on the floor. She watched them kiss perfunctorily, and wondered how she could possibly explain to her father about the Sarah in the car and how she was the same and yet different from the Sarah in the hallway. He would never understand, she was certain. She barely did, herself.

She ate her dinner and sat on the couch, lost in thought while the television played, until her dad's stubble-rough skin brushed her cheek as he kissed her. "You getting ready for bed?"

"It's not even - " she said, and then fell silent as she spotted the time on the clock. _Nine-fifteen._ It followed her upstairs, taunting her as she brushed her teeth. She took a big, steadying breath, looking at herself in the mirror.

 _That's me,_ she thought, touching the person reflected there. Her face was the same, her straw-blonde hair and her blue eyes and her still-crooked front teeth behind the wire of her braces. It was the same - and yet it wasn't, the mirror image of herself, beckoning to her, saying _try me on, come on, the water's fine. Try me on for size._

Frances changed into her pajamas and turned off the lights upstairs, then folded herself into her chilly bed and huddled, shivering, under the covers, until eventually she warmed up enough to fall asleep. But even then, her obsessed brain wouldn't leave her alone, because Sarah was there, too, Sarah was _in her dream -_ hundreds of them. They were multiplying even as she spoke, saying _Sarah,_ completely uselessly addressing them all at once. She didn't know how to get them to leave her alone. She didn't even know how to tell the real Sarahs from the others. Then came the terrifying idea that they were _all_ real Sarahs, and she woke with a start.

As she woke, she was chanting a repeating refrain: not Sarah's name, but the words _I don't like her and you can't make me._


	2. After

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter runs concurrent with chapters 24 and 25 in Bending in the Archer's Hand, so if you're reading them both, you can read either story first.  
> -amy

Sarah's usual seat was beside Frances in homeroom, but today the seat was empty. She wondered where she was. The dream of last night hovered just at the edges of her consciousness, along with the throbbing ache of her finger, now cleaned and disinfected and properly clad in a clear band-aid. It made her want to look at Sarah more closely, to see if there really _was_ only one of her - and if there was, which one was it?

While they were discussing their current events articles, Principal Hartford appeared. He stepped through the door and spoke in an undertone to Mr. Loughner, who turned ash-grey and sank down in his chair.

"Class," said the principal, turning to face them, and his voice was quiet and respectful. "I'm sad to say I am the bearer of bad news. Sarah Puckerman's mother passed away last night."

A shocked, uneasy silence spread over the room. Frances sat up taller in her seat, leaning forward. "Principal Hartford," she said, raising her hand at the same time she spoke, but it didn't look like she was going to get reprimanded for that. "What happened?"

"Was she in a car accident?" asked Lindsay, across the room.

"The details are personal," said the principal, "but she was sick, and the doctors at St. Mary's are learning more about the cause of death. Sarah is home with her family today."

 _What family?_ Frances wondered. _Now she had no parents at all._ But the answer came to her, clear as day: _She's at Kurt's house. Of course._

"We're going to need to be supportive of Sarah when she returns to class," Mr. Loughner said. "She'll be going through a lot. Some of you have lost loved ones."

"My grandfather died last year," said Brian, nodding, and other students chimed in with relatives who had passed away. Frances found herself stuck on the phrase _lost,_ when what was really meant was that _they died._ They went somewhere, didn't they? She hoped Sarah's mother wasn't _really_ lost, no matter how much of a ( _hushed word don't say it) slut_ she had been. It would be terrible to be somewhere new and scary and have no one.

"There will be a funeral service this afternoon at the Temple Beth Israel-Shaare Zedek," Principal Hartford said. "Any of you who wish to attend will be given a pass to miss classes, but you will need a parent to attend with you."

"Are you going to go?" Brian asked her in a low voice. Frances must have given him a funny look, because he shrugged and added, "What? You two are, like, friends or something, right?"

 _Friends or something._ Frances imagined asking her mother if she could go to Sarah Puckerman's mother's funeral, and wondered what she'd say. Probably would ask if any of Frances' other friends were going to go. As though it were a social occasion. She felt an ornery, pokey part of her rear its indignant head, and she heard herself saying, "Yes, I'm going."

"Do you want me to go too?" Brian looked reluctant, but she knew he was a nice guy, and he would go if she asked him to.

"No, that's all right," she said, and that's when she knew she was _going to do this,_ was going to _sneak out_ by herself, without a grown-up, and was going to lie to Brian and probably lots of other people in order to be able to do it. She thought, with a delicious shiver, that Sarah would probably be impressed. Not that she'd care, right now, with her mother being _lost_ and everything.

"I don't know what to say to her," she said. Mr. Loughner came over and sat on Sarah's empty desk, gazing down at her. He looked sad.

"It's hard to know what to say when a friend's family member dies," he said. "Even adults aren't always sure what to do or say. It can feel awkward, and that's okay."

Frances had attended one funeral before, when she was eight and her great-aunt Lottie died. She hadn't known her at all, and neither apparently had many of the people at the funeral service. There was a lot of walking around talking to people, and there was dessert. Frances remembered she had been bored, but had waited politely for her mother to say "I'm sorry" and "We'll miss her" lots of times before it was time to go. She had only seen the body from far away, across the room, and it had just looked like her great-aunt was sleeping in a fancy casket. It hadn't made much of an impression on her - but she didn't think this was going to be like that. This was Sarah's _mother._

"You could say you're sorry for her loss," he added. "That's a customary phrase."

The rest of the day passed slowly, and Frances felt odd to be at school at all, as though she were just biding her time until the real event of the day could occur. At least five other people asked her if she were going to the funeral, and when she asked each one why, they all said, "I thought you two were friends."

 _Why would you think that?_ she wanted to say, with genuine curiosity, because as of last night at 12:56 am, when she'd woken gasping in the night, she was pretty darn sure she wasn't at _all_ interested in being Sarah's friend. So why did everybody think she was? She never attended her birthday parties or went over to her house after school - though she didn't think anyone else did those things with Sarah, either. It made her feel a little faint to imagine being invited to Sarah's house. Then she experienced the shock that went with the idea that _Sarah had no house anymore, because she had no parents._ It was terrifying in a way she'd never felt before.

But Frances noticed that in three of her classes that day, the seat that was customarily taken by Sarah happened to be next to hers, either one behind or one ahead or to the right or left of her. That hadn't occurred by accident, had it? She wondered if had been herself or Sarah who had chosen their seats. Maybe it had been a little bit of both.

Sneaking out was easier than she'd expected. Perhaps it was that all the teachers were a little on edge about a parent dying, or perhaps it was that Frances herself was a trustworthy person. But nobody in the office blinked when she told them, "My mother's coming to pick me up. Can I sign myself out?"

She walked out to the parking lot, carrying her bag, and made her way down the sidewalk toward town. She knew where the temple was, and it wasn't too far from the school, but there was quite a bit of snow on the ground. By the time she got there, her calf-high boots were wet, and she was shivering through her thin jacket. She had begun to wonder why she was doing this at all.

She spotted the blue SUV before she saw Kurt, but he found her, bundled up in his natty grey coat and fedora, and gave her a wan smile. "Frances, right?" he said as she hurried across the street, against the light traffic. She nodded, and he glanced past the crowd into the brick building. "I think Sarah's inside."

 _I'm not here to see her,_ she wanted to say, but she nodded again and followed him into the synagogue. It was crowded with kids and adults, and she only knew a handful of them. The tall boy with the dreamy eyes was there, wearing his letterman jacket, and she recognized Danielle Rutherford with her older brother Matt. She didn't see Sarah's brother, the dangerous-looking one with the mohawk, but she figured he must be here somewhere, since it was all about his mother and all. She didn't see Sarah, either.

It wasn't until Kurt led her past the crowd to the other side that Frances realized Sarah _was_ there, standing along the wall around the corner, silent and almost entirely motionless. Her eyes flickered over the assembled group, watching. She was wearing a plain black dress that made her legs and arms look skinny, and a floppy black velvet hat, and black high tops with green and blue and purple striped tights underneath. Frances almost turned around and left her there because she definitely did not look like she wanted to be disturbed. But Kurt said, "Sarah," and she turned her head and saw Frances. She blinked.

"Hi," Sarah said.

Frances still didn't know exactly why she was there, but that look on Sarah's face made her hurt inside - as though it was the most unexpected thing in the world that somebody would be here that Sarah knew. "Hi," she said.

"I need to get back to - I need to find -" said Kurt, gesturing behind himself, and Sarah nodded, waving him on.

"It's okay."

He gave Frances one more tight smile and disappeared into the milling crowd. Frances thought desperately about what to say.

"I'm sorry for your loss," she said.

Sarah laughed, an unexpected sound. "No loss," she said, kicking the bricks of the wall behind her. "Trust me. She wasn't worth much."

"How can you say that?" Frances gasped, shocked. "Your _mother?"_

"My Ma wasn't much of a mother," Sarah said. "She pretty much messed up everything she did having to do with us. I don't miss her at all."

This was worse than Frances had expected. "Not at all?" she said, feeling sick for Sarah and not really understanding why. "But everybody needs a parent, at least one."

"I don't," Sarah said stoutly, crossing her arms. "My brother raised me, as best as he could. He's as fucked up as Ma, but at least he knows how to love me."

Frances flinched a little at the f-word, especially in a surrounding such as this, which seemed to be something like a church, but without any crosses. "I don't know if a brother's enough," she said doubtfully.

"Well, it's all I had, okay?" Sarah shouted back, and Frances recoiled, pressing herself against the wall, and Sarah sighed loud and took off toward the EXIT sign at the end of the hall.

"Sarah," she called desperately, and followed her, boots squishing as she walked. They had not held up well to a walk through the snow.

"What?" Sarah snapped. She didn't turn around, but she did stop in the middle of the hallway, hands flexing and back tense.

"I don't - I don't know what else to say." Frances circled her so she was standing in front of her, facing back down the hallway. She could barely see Sarah's face. The lights in the synagogue were lit, but they were in darkness, long shadows hiding them from the rest of the gathered crowd.

"I don't want to go out there," Sarah said in a low voice.

Frances glanced around them. "I - I don't think anybody knows we're here. We can just stay here if you want."

"No, I can't," said Sarah. She sighed. "I'm sorry I yelled at you."

"I think you're allowed," Frances said. "I think this counts as a time when you're allowed."

Even in the dim hallway, Frances could see Sarah's face become still and pale. "I'm _not_ allowed," she insisted, shaking her head. "I can't. I've got to keep it together."

Frances took another step toward her. "Why?"

"Because nobody else will," she said, more desperately now.

"Nobody's going to see," Frances whispered. She was close enough now to reach out and touch her, but she wasn't going to do that.

" _I_ will," Sarah insisted. "I'm the one who has to live with me." She held out a hand, warding Frances away. "Don't."

"I won't," Frances said, but she did, taking another step, and one more, until she was right next to Sarah, close enough to touch her sleeve.

Sarah tore her big floppy hat off her head and twisted it in her hands. "I don't know why they're bothering with this," she said, viciously. Frances could see her eyes were red and swollen. "She was a terrible person. There's nothing good to celebrate about her life. Why the fuck are we even _here?"_

This was an entirely different Sarah than Frances had seen before, different than the one from the hallway or the one from Kurt's SUV, even from the hundreds in her dreams. It hurt more than the cut on her finger to see Sarah like this. Frances grasped desperately at something, anything, to tell her that would give her an answer to her awful questions.

"It's not for her," she said. "It's for you. You're the one who's alive."

Sarah stared at her with hollow eyes. "Not really," she choked. "I'm not, really."

She wrapped her arms around her elbows and held herself, and when Frances moved a fraction closer, she drew back an equal fraction. Frances felt a rush of realization.

"You think you don't need anybody, but you do," she accused. "Everybody does."

"I can't." Sarah held herself tighter. "Because - because what if nobody's there?"

" _Everybody's_ there for you," Frances said, outraged. "Everybody _loves_ you."

"Nobody who matters," Sarah muttered.

Frances gave up trying. She grasped Sarah's hand, and when Sarah tried to pull away, she squeezed it harder and said crossly, "Your brother matters."

"Yeah, and have you seen _him_ here today? Noah's not letting _anybody_ take care of him _,_ not now." She looked contemptuous, but that was better than self-hatred or loneliness. "Timmy, maybe, but he's not looking to stick around long-term. He's got his own life."

She tried again. "Kurt matters."

That got her. Sarah's eyes softened, and as her shoulders relaxed, she leaned in, touching elbows and wrists and forearms together. It startled Frances at first, but she recovered, letting Sarah have the contact, and waited for Sarah to acknowledge it.

"Yeah," she said finally. "He does."

She squeezed her hand. "Who else?"

Sarah thought. "Mr. Hummel," she said, then added, "Kurt's dad. And Mrs. Hudson, Finn's mom... and Finn, if he ever gets his head out of his ass and apologizes to Noah."

"Okay. That's more than enough." Frances glared at her. "They're alive, too, just like you."

Sarah nodded grudgingly. "Okay, _okay."_ Her lips broke in a sudden smile, and Frances had to look away. She tried to let go of Sarah's hand, but their fingers were tangled together. It would take way too much effort to pull them apart now.

 _You can't make me,_ she thought, but it was faint, like an echo, and tempered by the good natured patience of Sarah's smile and the web of their fingers. _Okay, okay,_ said her mirror self. Maybe she _did_ like her.

It was impossible to tell whether Sarah was tugging Frances or she was tugging Sarah, but they made their way back down the hall toward the light of the synagogue. The service had begun, and everyone was already inside - everyone except a bald-headed man wearing a ballcap, who stood in the lobby like a sentry. When he saw Sarah, he visibly relaxed.

"I was starting to think you'd holed up somewhere," he said. "I wouldn't blame you if you had. These religious ceremonies give me the creeps."

"This is a nice place, Mr. Hummel," Sarah said, grinning at him. "You don't have to worry about that."

"Well, I guess you'll have to give me a little time to get used to it. I haven't been to church in over seven years." He aimed his kind eyes at Frances. "Who's this?"

"This is my friend, Frances," Sarah said, and Frances turned toward her, feeling the impact of the word _friend,_ and the speaking of her name.

"Pleased to meet you," he said, and shook her hand solemnly. It was the hand with the paper cut, and it hurt a little in his grip, but then it was okay. Then she realized where she'd seen those eyes before.

"You're Kurt's dad," she said, and he smiled and nodded.

"You ever been to a Jewish ceremony before?" Sarah asked her.

"No," Frances said. "My family's Catholic."

"I'm going to make sure the driver of the hearse is ready," said Mr. Hummel. "We're heading to the cemetery after this is over, and I don't think they realize just _how_ many cars we've got, driving the seven of us. Er - eight?" He paused. "You going to ride with us, Frances?"

"I don't think so," she said, startled.

Sarah touched Mr. Hummel on the shoulder. "Have you seen Noah?"

He shook his head slowly. "I think you're going to have to let him take his time with this one, Sar. He's hurting in ways I can't even imagine."

 _Noah. Her brother. Kurt's boyfriend._ Frances watched them in their shared pain, putting the pieces together slowly like a delicate puzzle. Another Sarah, another mirror.

"Well, I'm gonna leave the God stuff to you girls," Mr. Hummel said, curving his arm around Sarah briefly, and the way she accepted the half-hug reminded her strongly of the connection she'd seen between Sarah and Kurt in the car. _Like father, like son._ "Go on, there's room in the back there. Good to meet you, Frances."

"Thank you," she said. She liked him, this ordinary man with the ballcap, and she liked the way he clearly cared for Sarah. It made Frances feel safe, in some way, to know that at least one of the people who _mattered_ loved Sarah that way.

They walked into the synagogue and found a seat in the back row, hands still linked, and they didn't let go for the rest of the service.


	3. Noah

Frances left Sarah with Mr. Hummel and Kurt and the tall boy with the dreamy eyes, who turned out to be Finn. He seemed nice, though distant, and Frances wasn't sure what was happening between him and Kurt, because it sure seemed like more than friends, but wasn't Kurt supposed to be _Noah's_ boyfriend?

Frances wasn't at all sure how she felt about the idea of two boys being... _together,_ that way. It made her a little uncomfortable. But then, it made her equally uncomfortable to think about herself, being with a boy like _that._ She knew how it was supposed to work, and sometimes she had feelings that made her think she understood it, could even want to know more, to explore it, to _try_ it - but mostly it was just way too weird. Frances was glad she was still a kid, and had plenty of time to think about that.

Nobody thought it was strange that Frances needed a ride to the cemetery. It was after school now, and she thought she should probably call her mother and let her know she was okay, since she hadn't taken the bus home - but a part of herself, that prickly part that had led her here without a grown-up escort, said _you don't have to call her._ And she let herself listen to it.

It was that voice she was listening to when she hopped out of Danielle's brother's car and ducked out of sight, behind the parked cars that stretched all the way down the street. She watched all the familiar and unfamiliar faces go by in their fancy clothes, teeth chattering - she couldn't figure out why nobody could invent fancy clothes that were also _warm?_ \- until they had all passed, and she was alone on her side of the road.

Or, at least she thought she was. But then there was a flicker of movement in the truck beside her, a faint sound, and Frances moved around the side to see a high school boy in the driver's seat, watching the procession with haunted eyes through the rolled-down window. The wind blew the snow into his face, but he didn't seem to care. When the rabbi moved forward with a shovel and dug a scoop of dirt and dumped it into the grave, the sound of the dirt hitting the box made the boy flinch and look away. Frances knew, even if the mohawk hadn't been a dead giveaway, that this must be Noah. _He looks like Sarah,_ she thought, and cleared her throat.

He startled, then peered out the window at her standing beside his truck with barely disguised hostility. "What the fuck do you want?" he demanded.

"Nothing," she said, hastily, taking a step back. "I'm - I'm here for the funeral."

"You and the whole fucking town," muttered the boy, squinting across the street at the ensemble gathered around the canopy over the fresh grave. It was draped with white cloth, the simple pine box held aloft by supports. One by one they watched as each mourner deposited their handful or shovelful of dirt, some accompanied by sobs, others by silence.

"What happened?" Frances asked, taking a few steps closer to the truck. It wasn't any scarier than standing close to Sarah, after all, and he _was_ on the other side of the door.

He made a sound like laughter, if laughter had been cold and hard and completely devoid of happiness. "What question are you asking? If you're wondering, _how did she die,_ then I don't have much of an answer for you. She was sick, somehow. Something was fucking wrong with her, wrong with her blood, or her heart, or her head. People don't just drop dead for no reason."

The boy shifted forward against the window, leaning over the edge. "Or are you asking, _why did she die?_ " Frances quailed against the intensity of his stare, even though he wasn't looking at her. "That's an easier question, but I don't think you're going to like the answer."

Then he did look down at her, and he sighed. "You're freezing," he said.

"It's really cold out," she agreed, her teeth chattering, though she tried to still them.

"Get in the truck."

It wasn't a lot warmer inside, but at least the wind wasn't as bad. It wasn't until the crowd under the tent began to dissipate that the boy rolled up the window and turned on the car. He sat there, tense and watching - until Kurt turned and saw him. Kurt widened his eyes, waved his arm, and Frances could see him mouthing _Noah._ The boy gunned the engine and peeled away from the curb, making Frances squeak.

They drove around the block twice before Frances got her seat belt on. "Um," she said, clutching the seat nervously as he accelerated into the turn. "Where are we going?"

The boy - _Puck_ \- shrugged stonily. "Somewhere else. I just couldn't be there when - when there were people watching."

"That was your boyfriend," she said, and he stared at her. "He told me."

"Really," he muttered. "Fucking perfect. Well, yeah. He's my boyfriend."

She pulled the shoulder strap a little lower over her arm, feeling it chafe. "So why are you running away from him?"

"I'm not _running away."_

"Uh, _yeah,_ you are," she retorted. Frances was a little impressed with herself for sticking up to this scary boy with the mohawk, but she was already on edge from his crazy driving and all the f-words he kept tossing at her, so casually. She'd never heard so much swearing in her life.

He glanced at her again, and turned the wheel, rounding the corner a little more slowly. "I just want some time alone with... after everybody leaves."

He pulled the truck up next to the curb, and they both gazed ahead of them to the canopy over the grave. "I think they're all gone now," she said.

Puck parked the truck and turned off the ignition, then slowly stepped out. After a moment, he got a guitar case out from behind his seat.

"What are you going to do now?" she said, not quite willing to get out of the seat until she heard the answer.

"I don't know," he said, and he sounded so lost that Frances couldn't help but get out of the truck with him. She walked ahead to the grave site. No one else was around. The snow was still falling, but under the canopy, at least it was a little sheltered. She waited there, shivering, until he caught up with her, his eyes dark.

"Why did you bring that?" She pointed at the case. He set it on the table next to the big decorated box with stars on it. He snapped open the latches and got out a pretty blonde-wood guitar. It sounded good when he strummed it, lifting the strap over his neck.

"My... my dad, he liked music," he said. "And he left. She never liked listening to it after that. I mostly played in my room. But sometimes, I could hear her, standing out there in the hallway, listening when I would practice. I don't think she realized I knew she was there."

Frances stood with her arms around herself, listening to the unbelievably sweet sounds coming out of Puck's guitar. Then - he started to sing.

 _Songs to make you free  
_ _And songs to take you to another time  
_ _Forgotten reasons that are made of rhyme  
_ _For you and me  
_ _The songs of life  
_ _That somehow make us free_

 _Songs to fill the heart  
_ _Like quiet candles on a winter's night  
_ _They touch the spaces between you and I  
_ _And I will sing  
_ _The songs of love  
_ _That speak to you and me_

The words lifted into the silence of the cemetery, carried on the blowing wind and snow, and Frances watched Puck angle his guitar against a freezing gust. She came to stand beside him, thinking that her body might shield him a little from the weather, but feeling better, herself, for being closer to him.

 _Then wake the sleeping child  
_ _And let me sing to you of other times  
_ _And let me make your dreams as sweet as mine  
_ _And I will bring  
_ _The gift of song  
_ _That only makes us free_

The last note died away. He wasn't crying, but somehow she thought he might look calmer, more at peace with himself. She blew her nose on her handkerchief, and he looked at her in suspicion.

"Why are _you_ crying?" he said. "You didn't even know her."

"It's for - for Sarah," she said, defensively. "At the ceremony. She didn't have anybody to help her feel better. That's why I stayed."

Puck looked somewhat embarrassed. "Shit," he said. "I didn't... shit, Sarah."

"She was there with Mr. Hummel," she reassured him. "He was taking care of things. I think she trusts him."

"Me, too," said Puck, bemused. "I mean - I trust him." He slowly put his guitar away and closed the lid, fastening each latch like there was nothing else he needed to do in the world. Then she watched as he drew in on himself, like an umbrella folding up into a tiny little cylinder. When he was done, he was a shuttered lighthouse, and not one speck of light escaped.

"You'd better go," he said. "You need a ride?" She nodded, and he beckoned her back to the truck. "I'll take you home."

Frances thought about the long-ago funeral for her great-aunt, during which there'd been a lot of patient hand-wringing and sighing and tired smiles. She hadn't seen one display of actual grief. Today, she thought, with Sarah - and just now, here, with Puck - maybe she had. _Grief didn't look like being sad, not always,_ she realized. _Grief could look like a lot of different things._

"Where are you going?" he asked her.

She gave him her address, and he drove west on Elm to Cable and north to Allentown into her neighborhood. But as he pulled into her driveway, she thought of something else. "Where - where are _you_ going?"

"To Kurt's," he said. "Then... I don't know. I guess I'll find out tomorrow."

"Sarah, too?"

He nodded, face troubled.

"He matters," she said. "Him, and Mr. Hummel, right?"

"Yeah," he said. "They do. Though I've done a fuck-poor job of telling them. Guess I'd better take care of that, huh?"

"Sure," she said. Then she added, "I don't think people always have to say it, though. You can tell, other ways, when somebody matters."

He relaxed a little at that. "Maybe."

* * *

Her mother was absolutely _livid_ when she came through through the door, wet and shivering and - she realized it was getting dark, and she hadn't eaten since lunch - _starving._ "Where in God's name have you been, Frances Mary Preston?" she exploded. "And not one phone call?"

"I was at Ruth Puckerman's memorial service," she said. She could barely feel her feet through her wet boots. Her mother helped her out of her coat.

"The school seemed to think you'd gone," she said, "except I was _certain_ I hadn't given permission for you to attend." She did seem somewhat mollified. "Who else was there?"

Frances' lips tightened, but she didn't let her mother see. "Everybody," she said. "Everybody who mattered, anyway."

She took a warm bath and got ready for bed even before she ate her dinner, and her mother gave her an extra-hot mug of tea with milk afterwards. Frances was drowsy and relaxed when the phone rang.

"Frances, it's for you," said her father.

He didn't seem perturbed, so she knew it wasn't a boy. "Thanks," she said, and took the receiver into the hallway. "Hello?"

"Hi," said Sarah. Frances sat in silent surprise for too long, until she added, "Did you get in trouble for coming?"

"Not exactly," she said, though she knew she'd probably get a lecture in the morning from her mother. "Are you at Kurt's?"

"No," she said, taken aback. "I'm at Finn's. How did you know _that?"_

"Your brother guessed where you'd be."

"What? You talked to Timmy?"

"I thought his name was Puck," she said, feeling more confused than ever. Sarah gave a little gasp and started asking questions, fast.

"You saw Noah? Is he okay? When did you talk to him?"

"I don't know," she protested, holding up a hand even though Sarah obviously couldn't see her do it. "I saw him. He gave me a ride home. He - he was..." She swallowed. "He was _grieving."_

Sarah was silent. "Did he say when he'd be home?"

"He said he was going to Kurt's tonight. You haven't seen him either?"

"Nobody has. Except, apparently, _you."_ Sarah didn't sound upset by this, though.

"He was really sad he couldn't be there for you, earlier," she added, and heard Sarah's soft sigh.

"He's more fucked up than anybody knows. But he'll be okay. He'll show up when he's ready."

More silence, and then Sarah said, "I was calling to thank you for coming today."

"Oh," said Frances.

"Well, good night."

"Good night," she said, and there was a click.

"Who was that, honey?" asked her mother, when Frances came out to kiss her goodnight.

"Sarah," she said, and her smile was entirely unbidden. "She just wanted to tell me something."

 _People don't always have to say it,_ she thought with pleasure. _You can tell, other ways, when somebody matters._


	4. Sketch

"Who's that?" Frances asked. Danielle's door was not quite closed. She could hear two voices, low and hushed, but distinct enough. "I thought you said your parents were still sleeping?"

"They are," Danielle said, looking alarmed. She rushed over to the door and peered out. "Oh. It's just Dave. He's Matt's friend. Well, not really. They're not school friends, just home friends." She waved her hand holding the nail polish. "You know what I mean."

Frances did. At school, you had to be friends with the right kids, and if you made a mistake and hung out with the wrong ones, it could cause problems for you in the long run. The jocks and the brains and the art kids and the drama kids, they didn't mix. Frances' school friends were the second-tier popular crowd, the ones who hadn't quite made it to the top of the social pyramid, but were ready to move up into the upper echelons of status if anyone got knocked down from their spot. Just last week, for example, Joscelyn Rogers had come to school with the most unfortunate of haircuts, and by the end of the day her spot at the popular kids' lunch table was occupied by someone else. Joscelyn wouldn't be eligible for her spot for some time, and there was no way Frances or any of the other second-tier girls would be caught dead hanging out with her. She ended up sitting alone at lunch, which was the kiss of death.

But at home, you could be friends with anybody you wanted, and there was nobody to tell you you couldn't - except your parents, sometimes. Frances and Danielle were both school  _and_ home friends, but that was unusual; most kids didn't have very much crossover between the two. Usually home friends were kids who lived on your block, kids you'd grown up with, friends of your parents, or even kids from other schools. You could walk with home friends to school, but once you were there, you weren't obligated to talk to them.

Frances liked it when she would be assigned to do projects or groups in class with home friends, because it meant she could spend time in school with home friends without fear of reprisal. And sometimes school friends could get invited to your house to work on homework, and became home friends. That had happened with Danielle.

Danielle's parents were super strict. They went to a church that wouldn't let them do all kinds of things. Danielle's brother Matt had gone through a huge fight with them just a few months ago when he wanted to join the Glee club; he wasn't supposed to dance, which Frances thought was ridiculous. Danielle wasn't allowed to paint her nails, so when Frances slept over, she always brought nail polish with her. She worried about getting in trouble, but Danielle promised she'd take the heat if they got discovered. It was easier in the winter when Danielle could wear gloves to school and cover up her nails before she left the house.

"I think something funny is going on between Matt and Dave," Danielle said in a whisper.

"What?" Frances asked, sorting through the nail polish to find the colors her mother would let her wear. Muted tones she could get away with, and sometimes a little glitter on top of the pastels, especially now that it was nearly Christmas. She chose pink and a creamy pearl color.

"I think they're  _doing stuff,"_  she said, and her tone was awed and a little confused.

Frances glanced at the door to Danielle's room, as though the  _stuff_  would suddenly be there for her to see, like a movie. Not that she wanted to see that kind of  _stuff._  She wrinkled her nose. "No way," she said. "I don't think so. Aren't they  _football players?"_

But even as she said it, she thought about Sarah's brother, Puck. He was a football player too - she'd seen him in his letterman jacket. And he had a  _boyfriend._  Kurt. Kurt was kind of like a girl, so she guessed it made sense that he would be dating a football player. But two football players together? That didn't seem right.

"No, really," Danielle insisted. She pointed one magenta-painted finger at Frances. "I saw them in Matt's room. They were  _kissing._ "

They made twin noises of shock and disgust. Frances had never kissed a boy, but she wasn't particularly eager to try it. Boys didn't smell very good, to begin with, and the things that came out of their mouths were seldom pleasant.

"Have you kissed a boy?" she asked Danielle, waving her hands to dry the base coat.

"At Dominique Ford's birthday party. We played a game where you had to go in the closet for seven minutes. I went with Archie Turnbull."

"What... did he do?" Frances had the same feeling that she'd had in biology lab when they dissected frogs: it was kind of gross, but fascinating at the same time.

"It was nice. I don't know. I can't really remember." The vague look on Danielle's face made Frances wonder if she'd really done anything at all, if maybe she was just making it all up. Danielle did that sometimes; Frances thought she didn't like to look like she didn't know something. Then she laughed. "That was the party where Sarah dumped the punch on Greg Tate's head."

That sounded like something Sarah would do. "Did he try to kiss her?"

"No, he was trying to kiss Amy Lewis. Sarah was really mad at him. She threatened to cut off his fingers and feed them to Dominique's Siberian husky."

Again, Frances wasn't surprised. Sarah was always standing up for kids who were getting pushed around. Skinny, shy Amy Lewis against Greg Tate's obnoxious bravado was a recipe for disaster. Sarah wouldn't have tolerated it.

Danielle looked at Frances with her customary seriousness. "I can't believe her mom's really dead."

"I guess she was sick," Frances said. As though that made it okay.

While they finished their nails, Frances thought about Sarah's phone call, and about what Puck had said to her. She wondered if he'd ever come home on Friday night. She wondered how Kurt was doing, if he missed his boyfriend. She wondered what it would be like to have a boyfriend, someone who cared about her like that. But maybe he  _didn't_ really care so much, if he hadn't come home?

But she remembered the look on Kurt's face when he'd shouted  _Noah_ from across the cemetery, and the corresponding look on Puck's face when he'd driven away.  _Yes - he did. He did care._

"How's Sarah doing?" Danielle asked, and Frances looked at her, surprised.

"I don't know," she said. "She's... she's not a home friend." But she wasn't a school friend, either, because Sarah wasn't the kind of person Frances was supposed to spend time with at school.

"But you went home with her the other day, didn't you?" Danielle didn't miss much.

"I cut my finger," she said, "and Kurt gave me a ride home."

"Kurt? Kurt Hummel?" Danielle got a dreamy look on her face. "Oh, he's  _so cute._  He's in Glee club with my brother."

Frances thought about saying  _he's got a boyfriend,_  and wondered if that would make Danielle change her mind about Kurt, if she knew he was  _doing stuff_  with another boy.

They waited until their nails were dry, then they put on gloves and snuck out to the kitchen. There was a crumpled bag of donuts on the table. "I don't like these kind," said Danielle, handing them to Frances. She ate one, but it was almost too sweet, and she kind of wished she hadn't.

* * *

After Frances' mother picked her up at Danielle's house and brought her home, Frances looked up Kurt's number in the phone book.  _Hummel._ There was a  _Hummel Tires and Lube._  She wondered if that belonged to Mr. Hummel. Then there was  _Hummel, Burt._  She called that one.

"Hello?" The voice wasn't Kurt's, or Mr. Hummel's. It was a woman. For a chilling moment, Frances wondered if it was Ruth Puckerman's ghost, haunting them, but the moment passed and she shook herself firmly.

"Hello, this is Frances Preston," she said. "I'm... I'm a friend of Sarah's. I was just calling to see... if she was there."

"Hi, Frances," said the voice. "Sarah's actually staying at my house right now. I'm Carole. Do you want me to give you her cell number?"

"Sure," she said.  _Carole._  She sounded nice. "Thanks."

Sarah picked up on the first ring. "FBI Central Headquarters; what is your ID code?"

"What?"

"Apparently I've received a call from someone with no sense of humor. Who the hell is this?"

Frances huffed. "You don't have to swear at me, Sarah."

There was a pause. "Frances?"

"Yes." Her father, sitting in front of the television watching football, gave her the evil eye. She took the receiver into her room and closed the door.

"How'd you get my number?" Sarah sounded suspicious.

"Carole gave it to me. I called Mr. Hummel's house. Who is she, anyway?"

"She's Finn's mother," she said. Frances thought,  _Finn - the tall one with the dreamy eyes._ He'd been the one standing so close to Kurt, kind of hovering, like he was protecting him. They weren't brothers. Best friends, maybe. "What did you want?"

Frances bit the nail on her finger - a disgusting habit, her mother said, but one that was hard to break - and felt the ridge of the scab where the paper cut had been. "I was thinking about your brother, and hoping he got home okay the other night."

"You called about my brother?" Sarah sounded almost angry. "Sorry, he's taken."

"I know," Frances said indignantly, stretching out on her bed. "He's got Kurt. And I don't  _like_  him, not that way. That's gross."

Sarah sighed. Eventually she said, "He's gone."

"What?" Frances whispered. "He - he's dead?" That would just be too much for even Sarah to handle, she thought in horror.

"No!" Sarah snapped. "He's  _gone,_  as in  _out of town._  He left notes for Kurt and Finn and took off."

"Oh." She felt relieved. "So when is he coming back?"

"I don't know. Maybe never."

That was almost worse, in a way. "I'm sorry," she said, not knowing what else to say.

"It's okay. He does this sometimes. So did my Ma. They need time to themselves, to think things through."

When Frances was confused about something, being alone and thinking about it just made things  _more_  complicated, like stepping in a mud puddle; it just tracked a mess all over the place and made her feel cold and clammy. It wasn't easy to figure out what she was really feeling when she was alone. She wasn't exactly sure  _what_  she needed, but being alone was seldom it.

"Was there something else?" Sarah was annoyed again. Frances figured she owed her a little leeway about her attitude, though, because losing one's mother and one's brother in one week was pretty awful.

"I was hoping you were okay. You're not staying with Kurt?" Her nail was getting shorter.

"I'm at Finn's house. He and my brother were together first, but right now they're kind of broken up. They had a big fight."

_Broken up?_  "I thought he was going out with Kurt?"

"He is. And Finn. Except now Finn's just a brother, not a boyfriend. Maybe someday they'll be boyfriends again."

Frances knew that sometimes people did date more than one person at a time. And maybe it was different with boys; who knew? "It sounds complicated."

"It is. But it's awesome, too. I mean, it was. Right now it just sucks." She sighed. "Hanukkah's not supposed to suck."

"Do you want to come over?" Frances wasn't sure what made her say that, but it was giving her an itchy, uncomfortable sensation to hear Sarah sad like that.

"Um."

"You could come for dinner. You don't have to eat special foods for Hanukkah, do you?"

That made Sarah laugh, even though Frances hadn't intended it to. She tried not to feel offended. "No. I mean, sure. I could bring something."

* * *

The  _something_ turned out to be freshly baked applesauce bread with currants and walnuts. Frances couldn't say it in front of her mother, but it was  _way_  better than any bread her mother had ever made. "We're glad you could join us, Sarah," her mother said graciously, buttering another slice. She didn't even make a comment about Sarah's clothes. Tonight she was wearing leggings under a sarong, with what looked like a hospital scrub top with purple and orange cats all over it. Her wavy black hair was covered with a batik print bandana, and she had all thirteen earring holes filled.

"Thanks for dinner," Sarah said. She'd eaten reasonably well, considering she was  _grieving,_  which Frances knew from books often meant that people didn't want to eat. Sarah didn't really seem any different, actually, other than being a little quieter, which could have been explained by being at a strange person's house.

They went to Frances' room after dinner. Sarah pulled out her iPod and brought up some Lady Gaga songs, but Frances shook her head nervously. "My parents don't like that kind of music."

"I bet they've never even heard it before," she said, urging Frances to take it. "Go on. It's all right; we'll keep the volume down."

Her parents didn't come in to tell them to turn it off, so Frances guessed it was going to be all right. Sarah pulled a blank notebook out of her bag, got out a pencil, and turned to Frances' bed, where her favorite three stuffed animals were lying in repose against the headboard. She started to sketch the animals, outlining their position in broad strokes, then adding detail. She was very good, surprisingly good, Frances thought, though she'd never been much of an artist.

"So why'd you  _really_  call me?" Sarah said, not looking up from her picture.

Frances adjusted her sock with annoyance. "What do you mean?"

"We're not home friends," she said. The way Sarah said it, it sounded like something regretful, something she wished she could take back, but there was no way around it, was there? "So why'd you do it?"

"I don't know," Frances said testily. "I just was thinking about you and - and I didn't like you being alone."

Sarah glanced up in surprise. "I'm not, though. Remember? Mr. Hummel, and Mrs. Hudson - Carole - and Kurt and Finn. Not alone."

Frances forced a breath out between her teeth. "Well, fine, then - you can go home if you want; I'm not keeping you!"

Sarah returned to her drawing, a smile playing over her lips. "I know."

It was silent for a little while, and it felt way too easy for it to be like that. Frances listened to the Lady Gaga song that was on and decided she liked it, but she didn't tell Sarah that.

"What's it like to have a brother with a boyfriend?" she asked instead.

"I don't think it's that different from having a brother with a girlfriend," Sarah shrugged. "Noah's dated lots of girls. But none of them were as awesome as Kurt and Finn. I mean, Finn was his best friend for years, since I was a little kid. He's exactly what Noah needs. And things with Kurt - they're just really hot for each other. It's kind of adorable."

Frances felt her face burning.  _Hot for each other._  That was more than she needed to hear. It was like her mother would say,  _Frances, you're oversharing._  At the same time, though, she found she had more questions than she knew what to do with. She chose one of the more innocuous ones to ask. "Two boys together... that's kind of weird."

"No, it's not," Sarah said calmly. Frances waited for her to say more, but that was all.

"Danielle Rutherford said her brother Matt and his friend are together like that."

"Good for them."

Frances turned her head in annoyance. "Come on. Don't you think it's even a  _little_  weird?"

"No," said Sarah. "I don't. It's the best thing ever. You'd know what I meant, if you saw them together. It's the kind of love every love song ever written is about."

"I've never heard a love song written about two boys." Frances didn't know why she was arguing so much with Sarah, but it felt almost impossible not to. She wanted her to lose her cool, but Sarah was cooler than a glass of iced tea.

"I don't give a rat's ass about boys," Sarah said emphatically. "Except for my brothers, and Mr. Hummel. Everybody else can take a flying -"

"Sarah," Frances hissed. "My  _mother_  will hear."

Sarah glanced at the door, then grinned at Frances. It was that grin that said  _God, the universe is hilarious, isn't it?_  Frances usually found it completely annoying, but tonight, for some reason, it made her laugh.

"So you've never kissed a boy?"

"Oh, sure," Sarah said, and from her, it was completely believable. "A couple. Nothing worth talking about, though. I mean, I'm too young to do the stuff my brother does."

_What stuff,_ Frances wanted to ask, but she was too embarrassed.

Frances poked Sarah's leg with her toe. "I heard about you dumping punch on Greg Tate's head at Dominique's party."

Sarah's face, focusing on her drawing, grew hard. "Prick. He just wanted to get to second base with Amy so he could say he'd  _done something._  You don't do that to somebody. It's taking something away from them, just to do it for the sake of doing it. People should wait until they really want to."

"But how do you  _know_  you really want to?" Frances picked up her bear, the oldest of her three stuffed animals her mother let her keep on her bed. The rest had been donated to the Salvation Army or thrown out. "Maybe you just think you do, but then you decide you don't. What do you do then?"

"Then you stop. And you kick the guy in the nuts if he doesn't."

Frances laughed again; Sarah's hard expression softened a little, and she grinned too. "Or dump punch on his head?"

"That was just poetic justice because he was bragging about his Justin Bieber haircut all night," she said with relish. "It was so worth it to see him scream like that."

They shared a conspiratorial giggle. Frances couldn't understand why it felt so normal to be here with Sarah, when she'd never even been to her house before.

"I can't think of any guys I'd want to kiss," she said. "They're all pretty disgusting most of the time."

"You're friends with Brian," Sarah pointed out. "What about him?"

"Oh." She hadn't even though of Brian. Brian was a school friend, but his parents also went to church with her family. He was quiet and kind and clean - in short, not much like a sixth-grade boy. "I guess," she said. "He's okay."

"I think you shouldn't kiss somebody just because they're  _okay."_  Sarah suddenly stared at Frances, frowning fiercely. "It should be something you feel like you can't live without. Like you  _have_  to do it, or you'll die."

Frances took in this appealing thought.  _That's how I want my first kiss to be._  "Is - is that how it was for you?" she said breathlessly.

"No," said Sarah. "I've never had a kiss like that."

_So why did you do it?_  she wanted to ask, but she was too nervous.

Sarah got up from where she sat on the floor and climbed up on the bed next to Frances, laying the sketchbook in her lap. Frances was startled to see, not a picture of the bed as she'd expected, but a series of drawings of  _herself._  One was finished with more detail and smudging; the others were rough sketches, showing little more than movement lines and suggestion. They all made Frances look - she looked -

"Why did you draw me so  _pretty?"_  she asked, confused.

Sarah gave her a funny look, but she pointed to the sketch in the bottom right-hand corner, where Frances was laughing. "That's what you should do more often," she said.

"Laugh?"

"Be happy. Like that."

Frances stared at the sketch until Sarah reached out across Frances' arm to take the edge of the paper in her hand and, with a sharp tug, ripped it out of the notebook. The paper wasn't heavy-duty, but it was thick enough to resist tearing. Sarah presented the sketch to Frances. "Here."

"Thanks," Frances said, softly. Sarah's hair brushed her arm as she leaned over, and Frances watched as goosebumps appeared on her skin. She looked up quickly at Sarah's face, then back down to the sketch, face heating.

"I should probably get going," said Sarah. "I have a quiz in science tomorrow. Life goes on, huh."

"Thanks for coming over," Frances said automatically, rising from the bed. She laid the sketch carefully on her dresser, on top of her jewelry box. "I'll ask my mom to drive you home."

It was late enough that her mother said she should stay and get ready for bed while Sarah was driven home, and Frances didn't object. She felt strangely both tired and keyed up at the same time, and the usual ritual of brushing her teeth and taking a shower didn't help.

When she came out to say good night to her father, he gave her a kiss and said, "Your friend Sarah."

"Yes?" she said warily.

He rubbed his chin. "She's the one whose mother just died, right?" Frances nodded. "It's very kind of you to be so charitable and have her over for dinner."

Frances frowned at her father. "I'm not being charitable, daddy. She really doesn't have any other friends right now."

"That's what I'm saying," he agreed. "You're being very generous with your time. A girl like this, she can learn a lot from being around a girl like you."

Frances wanted to tell her father,  _no, don't you see, she's the one who's teaching me things?_ But Frances couldn't think of a nice way to say that, so she just went into her bedroom and climbed into bed. Then she climbed back out and picked up the sketch that Sarah had done. In the soft light of her bedside lamp, the pictures of her looked even prettier and less realistic. Feeling somewhat narcissistic, she took some rolls of masking tape from her desk and stuck them to the back of the sketch. Then she affixed the paper to the side of her dresser, so it was right next to the pillow on her bed. She could lay down and look right at it without having to keep touching it and smudging it.

She woke once in the night, holding onto shreds of the dream from which she'd awakened. There were only fragments, but they made her blood run faster, hotter, through her veins, so that she had to stumble to the bathroom to wipe the sweat off her face and neck with a cool washcloth. It wasn't until she was safely back in the dark of her bedroom that she felt like she could even consider them. Then she took them out, one at a time, handling them carefully like her mother's china figures.

It had been another of the hundreds of Sarahs, but this one hadn't been sketching or swearing or crying or cracking a joke. She'd been sitting right next to Frances on the bed, her hair brushing Frances' arm, giving her goosebumps. And then she'd turned to Frances as though to whisper something in her ear, and she'd reached out and gently bent Frances' cheek toward her, and leaned in, and pressed their lips together.

And it hadn't been gross or uncomfortable or scary, thought looking back on it now was giving her heart palpitations. Because she had  _wanted_ it, like Sarah had been talking about. Like she couldn't live without it. Like if she hadn't had it, she would have died.

She thought, as she drifted back into fitful sleep, that seeing Sarah at school tomorrow, she might die anyway.


	5. Rock

Frances didn't see Sarah on Friday morning, and for the first half of the day, she thought maybe Sarah hadn't even come to school. But at lunch, she was sitting with her usual school friends, and she felt a tap on her shoulder.

"You want to see something cool?" Sarah said, her eyes alight.

There was no way Frances could resist  _that._ She just hoped it wasn't, like, a severed head or something really gross, because Frances had a low resistance for things that squicked her. Sometimes it was hard to predict what they might be, but the worst one was  _hair._  Just cleaning out the drain in her shower was enough to send her into shuddering fits and make her gag.

She glanced around at her school friends, who were staring at Sarah with muted hostility - everybody knew she'd just lost her mother, after all - and mumbled an apology before stepping over the bench to walk with Sarah wherever she was going.

It turned out to just be over to Sarah's lunch table. She was eating with the art kids today, and they completely ignored Frances. Sarah ignored them right back and rummaged around in her big bag. It seemed to contain all manner of things. Frances was reminded of the carpet bag in the Mary Poppins movie, from which Mary drew ridiculous, impossible items, like a floor lamp. There was no way the floor lamp could have fit inside, and Frances remembered how much this had bothered her as a small child. Her babysitter had explained that pretend things could be absurd, but still, it grated. Even pretend things should follow  _some_ kind of logic. Talking dragons, sure; talking dragons with too-short wingspans,  _no._  Finally her babysitter had used Star Trek wormhole science to explain the carpet bag, and only then had Frances been mollified.

"What is it?" Frances asked, trying not to sound impatient. Sarah had done something with her hair, had put it up in a French braid with multiple strands. It made her look a lot older, but that could also have been blamed on the pinstriped vest ensemble and oxford shirt. Frances thought it would have looked better with a tie, but Sarah had a soft satiny scarf around her neck instead. She wondered if the scarf was as soft as it looked.

"Here it is." Sarah held aloft the object from her bag with a triumphant smile. Frances looked at it.

"It's a rock," she said.

" _No,"_ said Sarah, still smiling. "It isn't." She handed the object, which was  _definitely_  a rock, to Frances, and patted her arm. "See if you can figure it out."

Frances stared at the rock, then looked after Sarah, sauntering away. "It's not a rock?"

"Nope," she said, not turning around.

Frances took the not-a-rock back to her table and showed it to everybody. "It's a rock," they said, and shrugged when she said, "No, it's not."

Between fourth and fifth period, she passed Sarah in the hall again. "Can I ask a teacher for help?" she said as she wandered by, her nose in a book.

"You can do whatever you want," Sarah said absently, but she grinned at Sarah when she sighed dramatically.

"Is it plastic?" she asked in pre-algebra.

"Not plastic," Sarah said, and took a sharpened pencil from Frances' stash.

"Girls, get to work," said Mrs. Warner.

"It kind of feels like plastic," Frances muttered.

"Not," Sarah stage-whispered.

Frances had orchestra sixth period, and she carried the not-a-rock with her to sit on her music stand. Her stand partner, Kumiko, was smart, but the not-a-rock stymied her.

"I'd guess it was a geode," she said, "but that would still be a rock."

Frances tuned her violin, nodding. "Could it be, like, an uncarved sculpture? An idea, waiting to burst out of it?"

"Also still a rock," Kumiko shrugged. "Did you ask Mr. Sherman?"

They got permission from the orchestra director, who loved Frances and Kumiko because they listened in class and didn't argue with her, to leave ten minutes early to talk to Mr. Sherman about the not-a-rock. Frances spotted Sarah in study hall as they took a shortcut through the library.

"Mr. Sherman," Frances said, passing right next to her table.

"Good use of resources, Preston," Sarah said, with a smirk. "The geology teacher."

"You said I could do anything I wanted,  _Puckerman,"_  she retorted, Kumiko in tow. She noticed Kumiko give Sarah a nervous, apologetic glance, but Sarah wasn't watching.

Mr. Sherman smiled when she explained Sarah's not-a-rock. "She's right," he said, turning the object over in his hand. "It's not a rock. Do you want to see what it is?"

They watched while he took out a tiny drill and some little round circles, the size of baby marshmallows. "These are emery discs," he said, affixing one to the drill. "They're like sandpaper. We need to do this under running water. Can you hold it steady?"

Frances rolled up her sleeves and held the not-a-rock under the water while Mr. Sherman made terrible noises against it with the drill and emery discs. "So you can polish rocks this way, too," he said. "Depending on how hard the rock is, you can make it really shiny. If there are crystals inside, it might glitter... but no rock will do  _this."_  He held up the not-a-rock to the light and put a magnifying lens against it. Kumiko and Frances gasped in unison when they saw the golden light shining through the translucent surface.

"So what is it?" Frances asked. The not-a-rock was hot where the drill had scoured away the rough edges, and the surface was smooth, almost soft.

"Fossilized tree resin," he said, handing it back to her. "Millions of years old. Otherwise known as amber."

Study hall was over by the time they were passing back through the library, but Kumiko and Frances both walked home from school, and they stayed to look up  _amber_  in the World Encyclopedia of Minerals and Fossils. "I thought amber was made of sap, but it's not," Kumiko said, while Frances ran her finger over the satiny surface. She read aloud: "Sap is the fluid substance which flows in the heartwood of the tree and provides nutrients to the tree itself. Resin flows beneath the bark and protects the tree when it's wounded."

"You totally ruined my amber," Sarah said, peering over their shoulders, making them jump. She reached out and touched the corner where Frances was touching it, brushing their fingers together. "Check it out. Now I can't pretend it's a rock anymore."

Frances handed the chunk of amber back to Sarah. "Where'd you get it?"

"Carole gave it to me. She had it at the house. You guys are good - we played the it's-not-a-rock game for hours before I figured it out. Of course, I didn't have to  _cut it up_  either."

"Sorry," Frances said, grinning. Sarah grinned back.

"That's really neat, Sarah," Kumiko said, and waved. "Happy Hanukkah."

Frances followed Sarah back to her locker and watched her spin the combination lock. "I thought Hanukkah was last week?"

"It's a eight day thing. It started on Saturday last week. Tonight we light the seventh candle. My brother's friend Rachel is taking me to temple tonight." Sarah's locker was plastered with pictures of Tweetie Bird, Lady Gaga and some strange football-shaped fuzzy creature with big blunt teeth and round ears. She sounded casual when she added, "You can come with us, if you want."

Frances said, "Sure," before wondering if her mother would object to her attending a religious ceremony that wasn't  _their_  religion. Sometimes her mother was cool about things, but sometimes she was really strict, and it was hard to know when she was going to be one or the other. So she added, "I should ask my mother."

"We'll pick you up after dinner," Sarah said, as though Frances hadn't spoken.

Frances' mother frowned when Frances asked, but she didn't say no. "Don't be home too late," she said. "You have tennis in the morning." Frances wondered if her mother really thought tennis was more important than attending a holiday religious ceremony, or if she just didn't want Frances hanging around Sarah. She decided not to ask for clarification.

Frances guessed she should dress the way she would if she were going to church, so she put on her blue dress and nylons and a pair of ballet flats, but when she looked at herself in the mirror, she realized she looked exactly like the kind of girl that, if she met herself outside of school, she would avoid talking to. So she hung the blue dress back up on its hanger and, after some thought, pulled on a long black skirt. It was plain, but it was soft and draped well, and went well past her knees. On top she layered a red pointelle cardigan over a white lace sleeveless shirt. She hoped it wouldn't be too cold in the synagogue.

The car that pulled into her driveway was an unfamiliar one, but even though she'd never spoken to her before, Frances recognized Rachel Berry when she came to the door to get her. Rachel smiled briskly at Frances and said, "I'm glad you're coming with us." She smiled at Frances' mother, too, and shook her hand. "I'm a very safe driver, Mrs. Preston. I'll have Frances back by nine-thirty at the latest."

Sarah was in the front seat, but when Frances got in she turned around and looked her over critically. "Nice skirt," she said. Sarah didn't dole out compliments often, so Frances basked in that for a good thirty seconds before she said anything else.

"Is there anything I should know before we get there?" Frances asked. "What will I have to do?"

"Nothing," Rachel assured her. "You'll sit with me and Sarah. After the shabbat service, there'll be some special prayers for Hanukkah, and they'll light the seventh candle."

"Can we get some sufganiyot?" Sarah asked, sounding hopeful, and added for Frances' benefit, "You're supposed to eat oily foods on Hanukkah, because of the oil in the lamp."

"We can pick some up at the deli now, and have them afterwards," Rachel agreed.

The donuts weren't the usual kind that Frances had had before. They were heavy and round, covered with frosting. A little tell-tale jelly on one side indicated that they would be messy to eat. Their sweet, yeasty aroma was amazing, and both Sarah and Frances stuck their noses in the bag to sniff before Rachel put them under the seat of her car. "Later," she said.

"Have you heard anything from Noah?" Rachel asked softly. Sarah shook her head. "Do you have a place to stay? My dads and I have room at our house if you need it..."

"I'm good," Sarah said. "Mr. Hummel's gonna adopt me."

Even as Frances opened her mouth to exclaim, Rachel made a squeaky noise and stomped on the brakes, turning a startled glance on Sarah. "He's... he's  _what?"_

Sarah sounded almost smug. "He's awesome. Like, the best dad ever. So I'm pretty much not complaining."

Frances let this baffling news sink in, but Rachel's next question made her tense. "Why would he do that?"

Frances blurted, "He's been a friend of your family for a long time, right?" even as she reached around the right side of the front passenger seat and  _pinched_ Sarah on the arm, hard. Sarah twitched a little, but she didn't make any noise, and Frances was kind of impressed about that.

"Yeah," Sarah said. "Exactly."

Sarah's eyes were on her when they climbed out of the car at the synagogue. "She doesn't know," Frances said, low. "About Kurt and your brother being boyfriends."

"I just figured that out," Sarah agreed. Her voice was rueful. "I figured everybody in Glee knew by  _now._  But - I guess not." Her knuckles brushed the back of Frances' gloved hand, and Frances shivered. It was cold out. "Thanks for the save."

Frances kept her eyes on Rachel's saddle shoes as they made their way up the sidewalk to the synagogue, but Sarah was watching Frances. "You totally lied to her just now," she added.

"Not really," Frances protested. "Not in a way that matters, anyway." She thought it was funny that Sarah was calling her out for lying but not for pinching her. That  _had_  to have hurt.

The synagogue looked different, somehow, than it had during the memorial service last week. Frances noticed Sarah was hanging back, watching from the edge, clearly reluctant to go in, so she went to Rachel and said, "I need to use the restroom?"

"Straight in through there," she pointed, and Sarah stepped forward immediately.

"I'll show her where. We'll be right back."

Frances figured she could have found the restroom just fine on her own, but Sarah's eyes looked haunted and if there was  _anything_  she could do to make that look go away, to bring the confident, smug Sarah back, she would do it. She didn't even bother to pretend she actually needed to go when they got there; she just sat down on one of the plush benches inside the door and waited for Sarah to sit next to her. The silence was strange, like the room was listening to them.

"Two lies in one night," Sarah said, unwrapping herself from her striped scarf and bulky black coat. "You're in for a life of crime, now." She was wearing a green velvet shirt with a million tiny buttons up the back and big spills of lace at the sleeves, and what appeared to be a long black skirt made of some kind of slithery material, but Frances noticed they were actually pants when she hugged her knees up to her chin. She still looked sad and lost.

"I think my soul can handle a little tarnishing," Frances said. She couldn't help it; she reached out and touched the buttons on the back of Sarah's shirt. Yes, they were actually buttons, not just for show. "Did Kurt help you get those things fastened? That must have taken forever."

"Carole did it," she said. "Kurt's out with Finn tonight."

Frances connected the dots in her head. "Wait - Puck and Kurt... and Puck and Finn... and Kurt and Finn? How...?"

"All of them, like a triangle," Sarah said. "Or... it used to be."

"Oh." Frances had never heard of such a thing, but it seemed perfectly normal to Sarah.

Sarah rested her cheek on her knees and closed her eyes. "I'm starting to wonder if Noah really  _is_  coming back. I thought for sure when he didn't take Dad's old Neil Diamond records that that was a sign, that he would be back to pick them up, but I'm... having doubts." She sounded scared. "I'm not used to having doubts about Noah."

"Why doubt him now, then?" She watched Sarah pull in on herself, get even smaller than she already was, and it was almost physically painful to see.

"Because... because of what happened. With Finn." Her eyes were still closed, and she sat there for a few moments in silence before trying to explain.

"Noah and me, all our lives, we didn't have anybody else, but we could trust each other, for anything. But there was Finn; he was Noah's best friend, and he could trust him, too. Then things changed between them - when they started doing, you know, the sex thing..." Sarah made a vague gesture with her slender wrist, and the lace shook a little, and Frances was glad Sarah's eyes weren't open to see her blush. "It was just  _right._  He could depend on Finn. That was good. And Kurt - they all fit together. He trusted both of them. And I did, too."

Her sigh was almost imperceptible, but Frances felt it, like a blow to her chest. It kind of stunned her, the way Sarah's feelings were making  _her_  feel. Sarah's eyes opened, and Frances leaned in, tucking her knees up under her own skirt, mirroring Sarah's pose there on the bench, so she was looking her in the eyes. Sarah's eyes were mostly brown, with little flecks of green.

She went on, her voice low and intense. "And then Finn... they had a fight. A hitting kind of fight. And it's not like they've never done  _that_  before, I mean, shit, they're  _boys,_  they were always wrestling around and stuff, but this was  _way different._  Finn... gave up on him. And Noah, I think it broke something inside him." Her eyes closed again. "And me."

Frances couldn't let Sarah go any further inside herself, or she was going to get swallowed up. She reached out and touched her hand. Sarah didn't take it, but she did open her eyes and look back at Frances again. That was something, anyway.

"Finn told me, he said he... he was going to be there for me, even if he and Noah weren't... but I just don't  _know_  now. We trusted - I trusted - both of them, and we don't trust  _anybody._  I mean, what if I believe him and he changes his mind again?" Her voice was rising, expanding in her panic. "What if Kurt decides he's done, too? What if Mr. Hummel...?"

"They wouldn't," Frances insisted, and her hand was back on Sarah's shirt, feeling the buttons and the velvet and the lace edge where it touched her skin. Her hair was almost long enough to cover the space between her neck and the middle of her back where the shirt began, but not quite. She realized with a shock that Sarah wasn't wearing a bra. She probably didn't need one, not like Frances, who'd been wearing one since she was nine, but it was still almost too intimate to consider. Frances drew her hand away, and said again, "They wouldn't."

"They could," Sarah whispered. "I didn't think it before, but now I know they  _could._  And now that Ma's g-gone, and Noah might not..." She closed her mouth on the next words. Eventually she said, "I don't know when he's coming back."

The door opened, and Frances heard Rachel call, "Girls? Are you all right?"

"We're fine," Frances replied. She wanted to put an arm around Sarah, to be a shield between Sarah and everything else, but she didn't. Instead she watched, tense, ready to step in, just in case Rachel decided to come into the restroom.

Frances heard her sigh. "You're missing the service," she said.

"We'll be right out," Frances said. Sarah was silent. She heard the door swing shut.

"I'm sorry I'm freaking out," Sarah said. "I don't do this in front of people."

"It's the second time you've done in in front of  _me._  But it's okay." She touched Sarah's hand, and this time Sarah took it. Her fingers were cold, and Frances put both hands around hers amd held it close. "I don't mind."

"Yeah, I noticed. What's up with that, anyway?" Sarah's grin was weak, but it was there. She sat up and wiped her eyes. Then she extracted her hand from between Frances' warm ones, reached into the pocket of her skirt-pants-whatever they were, and pulled out a small box, wrapped with blue and silver paper.

"I got you something," she said. "For Hanukkah. But we should go out there or we're going to miss the rest of the service." She turned Frances' hands over and placed the box inside.

"I don't celebrate Hanukkah," Frances said, but she really wanted to say  _I didn't get you anything._  She hadn't even realized she'd wanted to, but now she felt like she  _had_  to. Not because Sarah would be offended if she didn't, but because - just  _because._

"You can wait and open it on Christmas, if you want." Sarah stood up and stretched, as calm as though nothing had happened. "But come on."

Frances held the box through the service, in her hand. She felt its smooth surface during the rabbi's reading from the Torah, which sounded a lot like the Bible, except the rabbi read part of it in another language and then part of it in English. She picked at the tape and stuck it back down again while they lit the candles on the menorah. When they sang a song called Maoz Tzur, she shook the box gently to see if she could get any clues about what it was.

Frances felt Sarah's hand touch hers, and she looked over to see her grinning. "Just open it," she said.

Frances glanced over at Rachel, who was paying attention to the service, and tore into the wrapping paper, trying not to make too much noise. She lifted the lid on the white box and saw a glint of something golden inside.

"Oh," she said in a small voice.

Sarah's hand reached over and took the necklace from her, unfastening it, then reached around her shoulder to let it rest against her chest. Frances felt the spill of lace at Sarah's wrists tickle her skin, and she tried not to gasp at the unexpected, terrifying sensation it provoked. She reached up with one hand and touched the tear-shaped piece of amber, wrapped in spirals of gold wire, dangling from its chain.

"I knew you'd like it," Sarah said with satisfaction.

* * *

They ate the donuts - sufganiyot - in the warmth of Rachel's car, trying not to get jelly on the seats. "My dads and I make these every year," Rachel said, laughing as she brushed frosting off her nose.

"Your  _dads?"_  Frances said. The jelly was raspberry; the frosting was sweet and creamy. She could have eaten twenty of them, if they'd been there.

"My two gay dads," Rachel said, matter-of-factly. "Daddy Leroy's a much better cook than Daddy Ephraim, but Daddy Ephraim's the one who grew up Jewish. Daddy Leroy didn't convert until they decided to adopt me, because my birth mother said I had to be Jewish."

Frances had no idea why Rachel would be okay with having two dads and yet  _not_ know about Puck and Kurt and Finn, but she wasn't going to ask. She licked off her fingers.

"Does your mother ever come to synagogue with you?" Sarah asked.

Rachel shook her head solemnly. "I've never met her. I don't even know who she is. It's the great mystery of my life. My dads won't talk about her and I'm not old enough to look for her on my own; it's all private until I turn eighteen."

"Wow," Frances said. She looked in the bag regretfully. Empty.

"My dad's a jerk," said Sarah, "or so I'm told. I barely remember him, either. He took off when I was four."

"Oh, I'm sure my mother's a good person," Rachel hastened to assure her. "I think she was just in a place in her life when having a baby would be impossible. Maybe she was a performer. I bet she's a singer. I mean, I had to get it from somewhere -" Her voice dropped to a regretful whisper. "-because my dads can't sing at  _all."_

"We have to tell the court that Mr. Hummel gets to be my dad." Sarah considered the last bite of donut before popping it into her mouth. "I mean, my new dad. What do I call him?"

"You could come up with a special name for him. Or he can just be your dad. You can call him your adoptive father, if he ends up being that. And there's your birth father."

She made a face. "Birth father. Bleah. I don't think I even want him to be that."

"You might change your mind about him someday." Rachel looked serious. "It's hard to consider life choices from the tender age of eleven. Just keep your options open."

Rachel drove Sarah back to Mr. Hummel's house first. "What's Finn doing here?" Rachel said, and Sarah scrambled out of the car. Finn was standing on the porch in the snow, clutching the iron railing with bare hands, hard enough to make his knuckles white. Sarah was up the steps and pulling at Finn's coat, and Finn said something to her, and then they hugged.

"I didn't even know she knew Finn," Rachel said, sounding puzzled.

"Finn and Puck are best friends," Frances replied, remembering what Sarah had said.

"Not  _anymore,"_  Rachel said, dismissively. "Now they're angry at each other. Because I - because of something I said."

 _That's not what Sarah said,_  Frances thought, but she didn't say it. She touched the amber at her throat and waited for Rachel to pull out of the Hummel's gravel driveway. Before they turned the corner, Frances saw Finn take Sarah's hand and head back into the house. She couldn't tell if they were good or bad, but there were definitely tears on Finn's face.

* * *

She called Sarah as soon as she'd brushed her teeth and put on her pajamas, but Sarah didn't answer. "Leave a message," was the whole set of instructions she heard in Sarah's voice.

"Um, I just wanted to know if you... if things were okay," Frances said. "And also to thank you for the beautiful gift." Her mother had asked right away where she'd gotten it, and she practically shoved a blank thank-you card into her hand. "I really love it. I'll be up until nine-thirty if you want to call."

It was quarter to ten before Frances heard the phone ring. Her father came to her door. "You still up, France?"

"Yeah," she said, turning on her bedside lamp. Her father brought the phone in and sat on her bed. "Is it Sarah?"

"Mmmm," her father said. He looked concerned, his hand over the receiver. "Is the... is she all right? I know she's had a big shock recently."

"A couple of them," Frances said. "She's not doing so well. I think she's missing her mom more than she says."

"Well, I'm glad she's got you for a friend," said her father, putting a hand on Frances' head. Usually Frances hated it when she did that, because it made her feel about five years old, but it wasn't so bad tonight. He pointed at the picture hanging on the side of her dresser, right next to her pillow. "Hey... that's really good."

"Yeah," Frances said, reaching impatiently for the phone. "Dad.  _Thanks._ "

"Okay, okay," he said, laughing, and handed over the receiver. "Pretty soon you'll be getting calls for boys. Not at ten o'clock at night, though."

"I'll be sure to let all the scores of boys who want to talk to me know that," she retorted, smiling. "Good  _night_ , Dad."

Her father shut the door behind her, and only then did she take her hand off the receiver. "Sorry to take so long. My father. He's a little clueless sometimes."

"It's okay," Sarah said, and immediately Frances let out a relieved breath.  _Good. They were good tears._

"What happened? Finn - he was..."

"Noah called. I mean, he texted Kurt. He's in Santa Fe, visiting the girls and the man he met last summer." She sighed, and Frances heard something else in her voice. She felt a twinge of doubt.  _Maybe not good tears?_

"Is he okay?"  _Are_ you  _okay?_

"Kurt's really upset. And Finn... Finn's pissed. Again. I guess Noah did something." Another sigh. "He's such an idiot sometimes."

"I'm glad he's safe," Frances said.

"I never worried about that. Not exactly. He thinks with his dick sometimes."

Frances felt herself flush, but she laughed. "What does  _that_  mean? Wait, never mind."

"I just mean he doesn't always consider what would be best for his head. Or his heart. Or pretty much anything or anybody else. I used to chase off all the really awful girlfriends for him."

"Girlfriends? You mean he's got those, too?" Frances lay back on her pillows and stared at the ceiling. "How does he keep track of them all?"

"I guess everybody's different," Sarah said. She sounded tired. "He was pretty much in love with the three people in Santa Fe. I thought for a while he might decide to move there. So maybe... maybe this is it."

"But... Kurt? And Finn?" She barely knew the older boys, but it hurt, just the same. It felt an awful lot to Frances like reading a book and discovering that one of your favorite characters has done something regretful.

"I don't know. I hate not knowing. I hate not being able to do something about it." Sarah's voice was tight and distressed. Frances wondered what she could do about it, but she didn't quite know how to ask. Then, suddenly, she felt angry at herself.  _Just ask. Friends do that. Friends who matter._

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

Sarah was silent for a few moments, and Frances held her breath. "Maybe you could come over tomorrow," she said at last.

"Um, I think I could," Frances said. "I have tennis in the morning, but then... I could come over in the afternoon." She felt the amber necklace under her pajama top. "I don't really know a lot about baking. Do you think you could teach me how to make that awesome bread that you brought to dinner?"

"I could. But the American Music Awards are on tomorrow night, and Noah always made us chocolate chip cookies for awards shows. So if you want to make cookies, we can do that. We have to make a lot, because Timmy will be here, and Finn and Kurt eat, like,  _a lot._ Especially Finn. Would your mom let you sleep over? That way we can watch the whole show in our pajamas." Sarah sounded the closest that Frances had ever heard her to excited.

"Sounds like fun," she said. It really did.

"Great. See you then."

Frances got out of bed to return the handset to the base in the hall before climbing back into bed. She was almost asleep when she realized she hadn't even asked her mother's permission before accepting Sarah's invitation.


	6. Resin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is, in part, the same scene as chapter 8 in The Breath Before the Phrase. There are spoilers for that story if you have not read it. It will also mirror the next chapter in Bending in the Archer's Hand, but I haven't written that yet. Apologies if the scene is too redundant; I thought it was important to see this event from the point of view of several different people. Enjoy.
> 
> -amy

Frances had never thought so hard about what to wear to tennis practice before. But then, she never had anybody to impress after tennis, either, and this was going to be Sarah's whole  _family._

 _Except one person,_  she thought, still feeling an unreasonable amount of regret for that. She hoped Puck would come home, someday, and the sooner the better if Sarah and Kurt – and Finn? – were missing him. He'd been an amazing singer. And, even if he did swear way more than he should, he'd been nice to her. He'd even taken her home from the funeral.

"Her brother  _left?"_  her mother said, when she'd told her as they were folding laundry. She made a tut-tutting noise and handed Frances a stack of underwear. "Wasn't he responsible for Sarah, though?"

"I don't think it's... quite like that," Frances said, tucking them neatly into her top drawer. She thought about what Sarah had said, about Puck and her being a team, taking care of each other. "They had their mother, even though she wasn't even around most of the time. And I guess when she was, she wasn't very helpful."

"Don't say  _guess,_  Frances, it sounds common," her mother said absently. "Hmm. How about her older brother? I suppose he might be her guardian, now?"

"No, mom, it's Mr. Hummel," she said. Then she shut her mouth, wondering if she'd said too much, and took her dresses to the closet to hang them.

Whatever she wore to tennis, she'd wear back to Sarah's. Then there'd be the sleepover, and then the next day before she came home. Three outfits, kind of. Her mother wasn't any help. "For goodness sake, Frances, it's the weekend," she said. "You should wear jeans, especially if you girls will be playing on the floor."

Frances didn't want to correct her mother again, but she had some strange ideas about what eleven-year-old girls did when they were together. There wasn't a lot of  _playing,_  anymore. Every now and then she would play a board game with her friends, or cards, or work on a puzzle together. Or when there was snow they might put on their snowsuits and build a fort, but for some reason it wasn't okay to build forts  _inside_  anymore, with chairs and blankets and pillows. When she got together with her home friends they mostly did sitting things – talking, and makeup, and nails.

She also didn't want to tell her mother how she felt about wearing jeans, how they made the skin of her stomach bump up over the top and her bottom stick out, like she was a sausage squeezed into the casing. It was embarrassing, feeling like everybody could see the whole shape of her awkward, newly lumpy body, when she wore jeans. Sarah didn't look like that, no matter what she wore – though Frances didn't think she'd  _ever_  seen Sarah wear jeans.

Frances rummaged in the back of her closet for improbable combinations of clothes, and came up with a skirt that was a little too short for her mother's liking, but had a fun little flounce at the bottom, and a red shirt with pleats in the front that she'd worn last fall. When she put it on it fit a lot differently than it had fit then. She had – she gulped, looking at herself in the mirror – cleavage. But it wasn't inappropriate, really, and her mother didn't even say more than "Put on some tights with that skirt, Frances," when she saw her. She tried the calf-high boots that Sarah had admired, but she wasn't sure if they looked good with a short skirt. The amber necklace, at least, looked fine.

She could have had Danielle come over and give her advice; she had a good sense of fashion, even though her parents wouldn't let her buy anything too tight or too revealing. She bet Danielle could come up with a Sarah-approved outfit from the things in Frances' closet. Then she scowled. Since when was she looking to  _Sarah_  for fashion advice? Sarah's clothes were entirely hit-or-miss. She didn't really know  _what_  Sarah was thinking most of the time when she came to school dressed the way she did. It was almost as though she didn't care  _at all_  what everybody else thought of her clothes.

Frances put a pair of flannel pajamas into her bag, the warm ones that buttoned up, and her slippers. After looking at her entire wardrobe and deciding  _everything_  was entirely wrong, she begrudgingly gave in to her mother's suggestion and packed a pair of jeans – they, at least, would go with her boots – and an Ohio State sweatshirt.

She picked up the gift she'd bought that morning for Sarah. It was beautifully wrapped with snowflake paper and stenciled silver outlines, but she wasn't at all sure the present inside was good enough. Not against the amber necklace, anyway. It seemed almost like a little girl present by comparison to the grown-up-ness of the necklace. But her mother had thought it was inappropriate for her to get Sarah earrings, even though Sarah had  _so many_  holes for them. Maybe she'd take some of her own money and buy some for Sarah anyway; Frances guessed that Danielle's brother could take them to the mall while her mother was at work this week.

Danielle had said something strange to her at school on Friday when she'd mentioned that Sarah had eaten dinner at her house. "Sarah's not really a school friend  _or_  a home friend," she'd said. Frances hadn't known what to say back. What did that mean about how she should behave around her at school? Could they eat lunch together, for example? If they walked to school together – not that they would, probably, because they lived in different neighborhoods, but if they  _did_  – would they then stay together at school, as though they were school friends too? As it was, spending time with her at school was costing Frances some status in her social group, even though nobody actively disliked Sarah. She was glad it was winter vacation and she had time to figure out this weird friendship on her own time.

She played a terrible game of tennis; even her instructor, who was usually the most patient, kindest man in the world was a little frustrated with her. "Eye on the ball, Frances," he called, and she couldn't tell him that her eye  _was_ on the ball, but her  _mind_  was somewhere else, and how could she tell her  _mind_  where to look?

Right in the middle of their second set, Frances remembered the dream she'd had last night, in which the hundreds of Sarahs had lined up, linking arms like a parade, or like one of those peaceful protests Frances had read about in social studies, and begun to sing. She knew Sarah liked to sing, because she was in choir at school, but Frances didn't think she'd ever actually heard her sing. In her dream, though, the hundreds of Sarahs' voices had swelled into a considerable presence, an overwhelming feeling. She could feel the song pulsing inside her when she woke up, a rhythmic throbbing, but she couldn't remember how it had sounded once she'd awoken, or even what the tune was. She let three serves go right by her while she tried to recall it, but it was lost to her memory – though she thought maybe her body could remember it, somewhere inside.

"What's going on with you, Frances?" her instructor asked, more kindly than she deserved, after their unfortunate game was over. She could only shrug and mutter something about winter break. Frances was usually very focused and together, especially about something important, something that involved winning, like tennis. She didn't care nearly as much if there wasn't something to get to at the end. But today she was distracted, and had no idea how to tune back in to the things she was supposed to be doing.

Her mother had plenty of reminders for her as she shuttled her from tennis to Mr. Hummel's house. "You'll say please and thank you, Frances, even if you don't do it at home," she said. "And don't forget to offer to help wash up afterwards. And don't bite your nails, for heaven's sake."

"I won't," she promised. Somehow she didn't think Mr. Hummel would care much if she bit her nails – but maybe Kurt would?

The boy she met at the door of the Hummel house was unfamiliar, but she recognized something in his face. "Are you Frances?" he said, smiling, and it was Sarah's smile. "I'm Timothy. Sarah's older brother."

"You look alike," she said, as he closed the door behind her.

"That's what people have always told me," he said, nodding. "Me and Sarah, we looked more like our Ma, and Noah looks like our dad."

"I'm pleased to meet you," she said, remembering her manners. And: "I'm sorry for your loss."

"Thanks." She could see, now that she was looking more closely, that he looked tired, and she thought,  _he's more alone than Sarah is, or even Puck._ He gestured down the hall. "Sarah's in the kitchen, knee-deep in cookie dough and chocolate chips. She said you could go right in."

"Are you going to help us?" she said, and he looked a little surprised by the question.

"No, thank you," he said. "But I appreciate the invitation."

If the dough had been on the floor, Sarah would not have been knee-deep, but she may well have been ankle-deep. There were half-full bowls and cracked eggshells and spoons and cookie pans all over the kitchen. Frances would have been cleaning as she went, but she wasn't surprised to see this was not Sarah's way.

"Mix or scoop?" Sarah said, not looking up from sifting flour.

"Uh... scoop?"

"Rounded teaspoonfuls, about two inches apart." She gestured to the empty cookie sheets. "Go."

Frances found two clean teaspoons in a drawer and took a bowl of cookie dough. "Do we need to preheat the –"

"All taken care of." Sarah tossed her head to one side, moving her hair out of her face for three seconds before it slipped back. "Puck's the real chef, but he taught me lots. I've been cooking dinner for our family since I was six."

Frances placed the scoops of cookie dough precisely two inches apart, but when she came to the edge of the pan, the last row was too close. She scowled and went back to adjust them all to a one-and-a-half inch spacing, and that worked better. "Wasn't your mother scared about you burning yourself on the stove?"

Sarah gave her the  _isn't life hilarious_  grin. "Not more than once, she wasn't." Frances laughed, even though it wasn't really funny, because the thought of a six-year-old burning herself on the stove was actually pretty scary.

She opened the oven and Frances slid the pan in. Sarah tried swinging her hair away again as she set the timer for eleven minutes, but it just wasn't long enough to stay out of her face, and she blew on it in frustration, sending up a blast of air that didn't help much more. Frances reached up without thinking and began to French braid Sarah's hair. She was shorter than Frances, not much, but enough to make it easy to start at the top. Sarah stayed completely still until Frances was done, and even then she paused for several moments, touching the sides of her head with tentative fingers. Her face looked a little awed.

"Where'd you learn how to do that?" she asked.

Frances smiled. She liked the idea of showing Sarah things she didn't know. It made her feel useful - special. "My mother," she said. "I can show you how to do it yourself, if you want."

"Carole did mine the other day, but it wasn't this good, and it took her forever. I guess she hasn't ever had a girl to practice on." She patted the back. "Noah used to braid my hair when I was little, just regular braids."

"You think he'll be making cookies today, wherever he is?" Frances started on another pan of cookies, and when she was halfway done, the timer went off. Sarah shuffled the pan out and set it on a cooling rack, then beckoned for Frances to load the next pan in.

"Maybe," Sarah said, wiping flour on her apron. "I don't think he really cared much for music awards, not like me. He likes different kinds of music than that. Songwriter stuff, mellower. The stuff our dad liked, I guess."

The cookies came off the cooled pan after five minutes, and Sarah dumped them into a Tupperware box and shoved it off to the side to make room for more pans. Frances poked at the CD player on the counter. "What's in here?"

Sarah was rinsing off some dishes. "Dunno – something of Tatenui's, I bet."

"Who?" said Frances, pressing play. It was an unfamiliar song, but pretty. When the singers came in, Sarah stopped, turned off the water and listened with wide, startled eyes.

"Holy shit." She came over closer to the CD player. "That's  _Noah._ And someone – "

"Turn it off," came Kurt's voice from the doorway, and Sarah complied immediately. Kurt's face was white and pinched. Into the silence that followed, he sighed. "Hi, Frances."

"Hi," she said quietly. "It was my fault – I just wondered what it was."

"No, it's fine. There's no reason why you couldn't hear it. Noah – he wrote a song for me and Finn, just last week. Finn's never heard it. I... don't think he's quite ready for it."

"He wrote that?" Frances thought it was impossible that a boy she knew, or at least someone she knew  _of,_  had written a song like  _that._

"Yeah," Kurt said, sinking down at the table, his head in one hand. His lips curved up in a faint, wry smile. Frances couldn't decide if it was a happy or a sad smile; maybe it was both.  _These boys sure are complicated._

"Want a cookie?" she said, and he accepted the plate she passed him.  _That one's definitely a happy smile._

"Thanks - I love them when they're still warm. Thanks for baking, Sarah, Frances."

"Wouldn't be the AMAs without chocolate chip cookies," Sarah said. "Here, plug in my iPod and we'll crank up Lady Gaga. Frances, get Kurt some spoons. You guys can scoop and I'll mix."

Kurt and Sarah both knew the words to all the Lady Gaga songs in the world, apparently, and Frances was rather surprised to find herself enjoying most of them. "She's really good," she said.

Sarah gave her a wicked grin. "Kurt, tell her about the phone call."

Frances gasped and exclaimed in all the right places as Kurt talked about Timothy's work with Lady Gaga, the demo track of Hair and Kurt's workup of the song for the Glee club. "So she's invited us out to Bel-Air to visit and talk music," he said. "Fat chance my dad will let us go, but it was nice to be invited."

"Tatenui  _has_  to let you go," Sarah said passionately, dusting her hands together. "How could you miss out on that opportunity?"

Kurt gazed up at Sarah, eyebrow raised. "You're telling me you would send your teenage children out to Los Angeles to play with the most notoriously strange musician of her age?"

"Absolutely," she said. Frances snorted, and Sarah put on a lofty expression. "You'd obviously be the responsible parent. I'd be the  _fun_  parent."

When Finn came in a half hour later, he found them making towers with cookies; Frances' was the tallest, but Sarah's, which incorporated spoons and glasses and one plate, was the most creative. "Which ones can I eat?" he asked.

"That huge box on the counter," Sarah said, pointing. "The one marked  _Finn._  You get all those."

"Okay," he said to Kurt, hugging the box to his chest with an awed expression. "We're definitely keeping her."

"At least until Noah gets back?" Sarah said, and that got her a small smile from Kurt. Finn squeezed his long legs under the crowded kitchen table beside Frances and put a whole cookie in his mouth.

"Longer than that," he said, through the mouthful. "At least until you're old and get sick of us." He swallowed and turned to her. "Hi - you must be Frances. I'm Finn. I see you got your not-a-rock. Did you figure it out?"

Frances touched the piece of amber at her throat. "I had to ask the geology teacher for help," she admitted. His eyes were even dreamier up close. They made her a little breathless.

"My mom posed that question to me a few years ago," he said, eating another cookie. "It took me weeks. Of course, I don't have that patience thing. Or the curiosity thing. I just wanted to know the answer."

"Frances has curiosity, but not patience," Sarah said, which for some reason made Frances blush. "Finn, don't eat too many cookies. You'll spoil your dinner."

"Okay, Mom," he said, grinning at her. "Hey, what's the Yiddish word for Mother dear, to match Tatenui?"

"Mameleh, and if you call me that, I'll break your kneecaps, Finn Hudson," she said severely. Finn laughed, a real laugh, and it made Kurt startle and blink his eyes quickly.

They moved the cookie towers to the kitchen counter and cleaned up the rest of the mixing bowls. Finn grabbed one and scraped up the leftover dough straight from the bowl. "This is one of Puck's favorite snacks," he said, with a sigh.

"No, and no," Kurt said, slapping him on the hand. "We're not getting morose tonight. And you shouldn't eat that; it's got raw egg in it."

"I use fresh cage-free eggs, dude," Sarah said, sounding offended. "You can totally eat this cookie dough and be safe. No salmon-whatsit." She took a spoonful from the nearly-empty bowl and put it defiantly in her mouth. Kurt huffed his discontent as Sarah scooped up more. "Come on, Frances. Try it."

Frances thought it sounded pretty gross, eating raw egg, but she obligingly opened her mouth and tasted the bite Sarah put between her lips.  _God._  It was sweet and salty and perfect. She made a noise of approval that would have embarrassed her mother, ate every bit of the dough off the spoon and reached for the bowl, but Sarah laughed and held it just out of her reach.

"Pretty awesome, huh?" she said smugly.  _Sarah liked to be right, too._

"Better than the cookies," Frances breathed. "Why wasn't I eating the dough that way all along?"

"I'd guess because your mom said you shouldn't." Sarah gave her the wooden spoon, and Frances took her time licking it clean. Sarah just finished the dishes, with a smile of satisfaction on her face.

* * *

Frances had always thought of herself as competitive, but Timothy and Kurt were the most cutthroat Monopoly players she had ever met. "Be glad Noah's not here," Sarah said, nodding at Kurt's stack of properties. "He  _always_  wins. I think he's figured out a way to rig the dice."

Dinner had been delicious: pork loin and apples, with sauteed green beans and almonds and mashed potato. Frances had a hard time believing Sarah was responsible for the dinner, but nobody else could have done it, because they'd all been shooed out of the kitchen and presented with dinner in what appeared to be the traditional Puckerman style. She wondered if there was a polite way to invite herself over for dinner more often.

Mr. Hummel (Tatenui to Sarah, as Frances had finally figured out), Carole, Finn, Sarah and Frances had long since put all their properties into foreclosure and were sitting at the table making ice cream cookie sandwiches and wrapping them in plastic wrap to stick in the freezer. "We'll eat them tomorrow," said Sarah, squishing a cookie down on top of a big dollop of vanilla ice cream. "Frozen is the only way to eat an ice cream cookie sandwich."

And then Kurt's phone rang, to the tune of Sweet Caroline, and everyone froze. Kurt knocked back his chair in his hurry to extract the phone from the pocket of his skinny jeans, and he held it to his pale face, stuttering, "N-Noah?"

Frances felt a wave of dizziness pass over her, and she saw Sarah sit up a little straighter in her chair. Timothy stood slowly and came to stand by Sarah. Mr. Hummel and Carole exchanged looks, and Finn – he looked a little like he'd been hit by a bus.

"I can't believe…" Kurt closed his eyes and clutched the back of Finn's chair for support. "Are you okay? Tell me you're okay." He nodded at everybody, and there was a collective exhale. "Your mother... I'm so, so sorry."

Frances couldn't imagine what it would be like to lose her mother. It wasn't as though she thought about her mother every day, exactly, but she depended on her in ways she couldn't even describe. She thought about how things must have been for Mr. Hummel, who lost his wife when Kurt was eight, and had to start parenting on his own.  _Impossible,_  she thought.  _I could never do that by myself._ And yet, it was exactly what Puck was considering doing.

"That's not true," said Kurt, his face pained. They were all listening, filling in the blanks in the one-sided conversation in their heads. "No matter what was going on between you, she's still your mother. I know what that's like to lose. I miss you so much. Please, can't you come home?"

Frances turned toward Sarah and reached out, placing a hand on her sleeve. "Do you think he will?" she said under her breath.

"I hope so," Sarah replied thoughtfully. "It depends on what he's set off to accomplish. Maybe he hasn't figured it out yet."

"Thank you," said Kurt into the phone. He looked relieved. "It's been a hell of a week."

Burt stood up and, silently, started to pick up the Monopoly game. Frances guessed that maybe he just wanted something to do, because it was awful to have nothing to do to help when things like this happened. She stood, too, and started to gather the ice cream sandwiches to put in the freezer.

"Talk to me," Kurt implored. "I just want to hear your voice. Please… yes, Toby sent us a text of you in Denver. That was… yes. Where did you go after that?"

Frances watched as Timothy approached Mr. Hummel, carrying his coat, and said in a low voice, "I'm heading home. Please... let me know if he needs anything."

Mr. Hummel looked surprised. "Don't you want to -?"

"No," he cut him off. "He doesn't need more people hanging around to talk to him. I can worry about him just fine from my own house." He shook Mr. Hummel's hand, then turned to Sarah. "He's safe."

"You knew he would be," she objected, sounding offended.

"True. But this time he's got people to take care of him." Timothy leaned forward and kissed her hair, and was out the door before she could say anything else. Mr. Hummel and Carole stood by, but neither one moved to stop him.

Finn watched Timothy go with a silent, drawn expression. Then he stood and moved to the space behind Kurt, one hand on his shoulder. As during the funeral, Frances got the idea that Finn was guarding Kurt, in a way – but now, watching his face, she thought it might be going the other way around, too, that Kurt was providing Finn with a kind of support just by being near him.

"I haven't been listening to much else, Noah. That song… it's beautiful. You and Mercedes, the two of you – it just kills me." Kurt wiped his eyes. "Only in the best way. Yes, I love it, so much. Go on."

He took Finn's hand, which rested on his shoulder. The next comment from Puck, whatever it was, made him sigh. "The four of you, that's part of your history. I don't think… Noah, I've never asked you not to see them. I didn't figure it was my place. I'm not upset you're there. They understand, and they know you, and I think… I think they're good for you. I don't feel bad about you spending time with Alex, or Daphne or Nicole."

Frances watched Finn's face pinch closed briefly when Alex's name was mentioned, but he purposefully relaxed it, taking a deep breath. At the same time, Kurt's face drew tighter, as he spoke. "I know, sweetheart. Did you – did you find it somewhere else?" He leaned his head sideways against Finn's stomach. "Okay." When he looked up at Finn, Frances could see the tears beginning to slide down his cheeks. "He's a top."

That didn't make any sense at all to Frances, but she saw Finn jerk back, crossing his arms. Kurt's own gaze on Finn hardened. "Just tell me, Noah. Don't hold back. Tell me everything. I want to hear it."

Frances looked at Mr. Hummel, who was worrying his hands back and forth, like he was tossing a ball. Carole gave Frances a compassionate glance. "Maybe we should go," she whispered to Sarah, tugging her hand. "I don't know that they want me around to hear this."  _I'm not sure I want to hear it, myself._

"I don't think they care," Sarah said, staying where she was, but she hung on to Frances' hand. Kurt's next words made both Finn and Frances flinch.

"You had sex." Kurt was still crying, but it was almost an afterthought. Finn pressed his lips together and bowed his head. "Just like that. I guess I get that. Go on."

Frances didn't think she'd ever heard of a boyfriend who would be  _okay_  if his girlfriend were doing  _that_  with other girls... but, maybe, as she'd thought before, things were different between boys. She squeezed Sarah's hand, but Sarah didn't squeeze back.

"I'm glad, sweetheart. What else?" Kurt sat forward, glancing up at Finn again. "Really? How?"

Frances had heard the description  _drained of color_  before, but this was the opposite. It was as though someone turned on the red spigot and filled up Kurt's face. "Noah… tell me… tell me you don't mean  _Adam Lambert."_

"No way," Sarah breathed.

"Who's he?" Frances asked in an undertone.

Finn looked like someone had punched him. "He's the American Idol guy," he said faintly. "He won second place last year."

" _Noah,"_  Kurt said desperately, rising from his chair, pushing Finn back.

"Kurt, come on, sit down," said Mr. Hummel, stepping forward and taking both hands. Kurt allowed himself to be guided, sinking back into his seat.

"Sweetheart…  _Adam Lambert?"_  He let out a sudden hysterical laugh. "I took it as one. How did you even… to his  _hotel room?_  He sang to you in the  _coffee shop?_  And you… " He glanced at his father and hunched over his phone, whispering the rest. "And he has a boyfriend," she heard.

"No, he and Drake broke up last month," Sarah insisted. "I read it in OUT Magazine."

"Really?" Kurt considered this. "Because they seemed so snuggly in those photos from… God. I am  _not_  gossiping about  _Adam Lambert_  with you." He leaned forward, his head in one hand. "Real. This… this is real, Noah?"

Finn had been standing very still by himself, but now he walked slowly over to stand beside Kurt, keeping contact with him.

"God." Kurt smothered a surprised laugh, and in a suddenly normal, amused voice, said, "I really miss you." Then he sat straight up. "Guilty?" Now he sounded shocked. "Noah – you don't have anything to be guilty about! He's the one… god, you have no idea. He's been a wreck, he barely left his room for four days."

"That's not exactly true," Finn muttered. "I came out to use the bathroom eventually. And I  _wanted_  to eat."

"Well, you didn't," Kurt said, leaning his head on Finn. "No. But, sweetheart, we're all here. My dad and Carole and Sarah. Timothy's been here, on and off, too. I know what you did what you felt like you had to do. And – I'm glad that…  _Adam_ … could help you. Mostly I'm relieved to hear you still want to come home."

He sounded so hopeful, Frances couldn't help but wonder what would make somebody want to be with somebody else so much, when they were clearly being  _hurt_  by them. "But you still want… me," he said. "Even though you have… him? Seriously, Noah, how can I compete with  _Adam Lambert?"_

Finn backed away a few steps from Kurt, the name seeming to propel him away. "Jesus," he said.

"Who is this guy, anyway?" Mr. Hummel muttered, taking Finn's place next to Kurt. "He's on television?"

"Noah," Kurt said, and he was sobbing, real sobs, loud and uncontrolled, and Mr. Hummel's arms were around him, holding him tight. He wasn't letting go of the phone, though, not for anything. Finn's own arms were around himself, and his face was screwed up in a confused, hurting expression. Carole walked to him, putting an arm around his waist, and he let her.

"I… I don't get it," Kurt choked out, wiping his eyes. "Yes. I still don't understand  _that_ , either. And Adam… is he okay, with you having… me?" Kurt let out a noise Frances had never heard from a boy before, a kind of breathy squeal. He, listened, then did it again, clutching his hand to his mouth. "Are you okay?" Sarah asked, and he nodded frantically.

"I'm not going to hyperventilate," he chanted. "Okay. This is… surreal doesn't begin to cover it. Just… if you come back ho… here, I think we can figure out the rest. Just come back."

Sarah tugged on his sleeve. "My turn," she hissed.

Kurt rolled his eyes. "That would be… yes, I would. And I think, judging by her wild gesticulations, Sarah would like to talk to you." Reluctantly, he let the phone out of his hand, watching it go, and touched his dad's hands, resting on his shoulders. Sarah beckoned Frances closer, and they put their heads together with the phone between them.

"You're the biggest pain in the ass brother ever," Sarah complained, not even saying  _hello_. "Seriously. I think you broke Finn. He looks terrible. Nobody can do anything around here except whine about you. And what's this about  _Adam Lambert?"_

"Hey, squirt," Frances heard, faintly. "Yeah. I'm in love again." Puck sounded completely different from the last time she'd heard him. He sounded  _happy._  "He's fucking incredible."

"You get all the boys," Sarah snorted. "I'll be lucky if anyone even invites me to the winter dance." Frances thought that was a strange thing for Sarah to say, because she'd never really expressed much interest in going to dances before, nor did she seem to care if a boy invited her.  _But maybe she did care?_

"You're not old enough to be thinking about that shit," Puck objected. "And any boy who tries, I'm going to kick his ass."

"Whatever, Noah. Do I need to kick  _your_ ass for hurting Kurt? You didn't do anything you shouldn't do, did you?"

"I think you have to ask Kurt that," he said. "I don't really know. It – it was just kind of impossible to do anything else."

Sarah made an  _oh, well_  gesture. "I guess love is like that. Tatenui looks like he's going to punch something, though. You're in for it."

"Who?"

"Mr. Hummel," Sarah clarified. "You've got your own catching up to do. A whole fucking week with no phone calls? Dude."

"Language, Sarah," Mr. Hummel said, somewhat wearily.

"Sorry," she said to him. Then into the phone: "I can't say the f-word anymore."

"Good fucking luck with that," said Puck. "You're gonna watch this American Music Awards, too?"

"Uh,  _yeah,_ " she said with great scorn. "Lady Gaga's performing."

Mr. Hummel reached over and tapped the table. "I think your turn is up, kiddo."

"You want to talk to Tatenui?" Sarah said, and passed the phone to Mr. Hummel.

"Puck," he said, in a warning tone, and Frances felt a shiver go down her spine. "You've got a lot to answer for. How many times do you think we're going to have to have this conversation?"

Sarah eased back in her seat, and somehow Frances found herself with her arms around Sarah's shoulders. She looked over and saw Sarah was smiling. "What?" she said.

"Tatenui," she said, taking a sip of milk. "He's taking care of Noah."

It didn't sound much like he was  _taking care_  of him to Frances. She thought he might be getting ready to yell. But Sarah didn't look worried at all.

"I'm not talking about that," Mr. Hummel said impatiently, stalking back and forth between the kitchen counter and the table. "Puck, I don't care how many times you mess up. That's what humans do. It's just part of life. I'm talking about this business with  _more people._  Do you think I have endless room in this damn house? Is this becoming the Hummel Home for Angsty Lovestruck Boys?"

Mr. Hummel was the only one in the room who was scowling now. Kurt let out an adorable giggle, and Sarah nearly snorted her milk all over the coffee table. Carole was stifling her own laughter behind both hands, and even Finn was shaking his head and smiling. Frances watched Mr. Hummel pace with a new sense of awareness.  _He was stern, but he understands._

He sighed. "Puck," he said, more gently. "Nobody is mad at you." He turned a glare on Finn. "Nobody."

"Okay, okay," Finn grumbled, and Carole elbowed him, none too gently.

"I know that's what Finn said, but that's not how things are now. We all miss you and want you to come home. That's step one. Step two is up to all of us to decide. Yes,  _all_  of us. Now who the heck is this Adam character? Because I think Kurt's about to burst into song or something, he looks so excited."

"Dad," Kurt protested, his cheeks red. "He's a  _rock star._  We're going to see him on  _television_  in about – fifteen minutes."

"No kidding," Burt said, and he sounded grudgingly impressed. "Boy, you get around, don't you?" Now he sounded like he was teasing. "Well, I guess you can tell me all about it when you get home, huh? You going to make it in time for Christmas? I know you don't celebrate that, but…" He listened. "Okay. You've got time to think about it. We've got a lot to talk about. Drive safe, okay? No stupid stunts. You pull over and sleep when you get tired."

"There he is," said Kurt, suddenly, pointing at the screen, "that's him. That's Adam."

"Who?" Frances asked, but he was already gone.

Carole reached a hand up, waiting silently for the phone. "We'll see you soon," said Mr. Hummel. "Here's Carole."

She took the phone and put it to her ear while Finn watched her warily. "Puck, are you okay?" She listened. "Finn told me all of it. Or – I think all of it." She sounded almost amused. "He's giving me the evil eye, so I'm guessing there's parts I'll never know. That's the way it goes, when you're the parent."

Frances felt sorry for Finn, the way his mother was picking on him. He was clearly sad inside, no matter how grumpy his face looked. She knew exactly how that felt.

"I guess you will," Carole said. "When's the baby due?"

Frances turned startled eyes on Sarah. "What baby?" she whispered.

"Noah's and Quinn's baby," she whispered back. "Noah's going to be the papa."

"Wow." Her cousin had gotten pregnant when she was in high school, two years ago, but the family had made her give the baby up. "How's he going to do that?"

"He'll figure it out," Sarah said. "He always does. And he's going to be an awesome dad."

"I remember that feeling when I was pregnant," Carole said, smiling. She seemed  _so calm,_  when everyone else around her was jumpy and anxious. It made Frances feel calmer, just to be near her. "There's a lot of questions I have, but I can wait until you get back to talk about it. We all want to help, Puck."

She turned sad eyes on Finn. "He's hurting." Finn winced away from her words. It was like he was trying to hide behind the shadow of his shoulders. "I don't think it's going to be easy, but – Puck, the two of you have been friends for too long for this to be the end of everything. I'm sure you can work through it." Her gaze didn't waver. Finn looked like he might start crying, himself. Frances didn't think she could handle that. Boys didn't cry in her world - though Kurt apparently was an exception to just about everything, so maybe, maybe the rest of this odd family could be an exception, too.

"There," Sarah said, nudging Frances, and she looked at the screen to see a tall man in a grey suit, his hair spiked up high in a kind of pompadour. His eyes were lined with black and he had sparkles on his cheeks and lips. The shorter man he was talking to had even more makeup on than him. "Adam's the tall one. That's his bass player, Tommy Joe Ratliff. He's really good – he learned how to play bass just so he could tour with Adam."

"I guess he must be a big deal," Frances said, staring in fascination. She tried to imagine Puck and Adam – she closed her eyes with a sudden shiver. "I wonder how they met. People don't just meet rock stars on the street, do they?"

"Maybe," Sarah said, shrugging. "I don't see how they'd be a whole lot different from regular people, unless you were looking for them. They have to live somewhere, right?"

Carole was wrapping up her conversation with Puck, and she turned to Finn, holding out the phone. He regarded it like it was going to mortally wound him. Maybe it would. "No," he said, sounding scared.

"Just say hello," Carole said. Into the phone, she said, "Here's Finn," and she pressed it to his cheek.

He tried to back away. "What? No, I – I  _can't."_

"Yes, you can," she said firmly, and Finn took the phone, holding it away from his face. Finally, slowly, he put it to his ear. His face was a curious blend of fear, frustration and anticipation.

"Hi," he said, and then waited, biting his lip. He glanced at Kurt with anxiety as the silence stretched.

"Tell him you want him to come home," Carole whispered, with a flick of her wrist.

He spoke reluctantly. "My mom wants me to tell you that I – that you should come home."

"That's not what I said," she hissed, but Finn ignored her, listening. "Tell him you love him."

"I'm not going to say that," Finn said, angrily. He listened again, then snapped, "Yeah, and why should I believe a word you say? Seems like you can lie to me whenever you feel like it."

"Finn," Kurt protested, while Carole said, "That's  _enough,_  young man." She did stern as well as Mr. Hummel did. Frances was glad it wasn't focused on her.

But Finn was listening to Puck. His face went white. "Don't," he choked, " _don't_  tell me about him. I can't hear it – I can't." He fumbled the phone at Kurt and took off, running down the stairs. Carole cast a pleading look back at Mr. Hummel, and then went after him.

"Noah," said Kurt, anxious. He sighed. "Carole followed him." He listened. "I – Noah. He's already gone to see Dr. Howell. He's seen him a couple times."

Frances knew there were doctors that helped people feel better when they were feeling sad –  _depressed,_  they called it. Her mother had gone, a few years ago, and she was much better now. Dr. Howell must be that kind of doctor.

"No," Kurt said, quickly. "Just… stay on the phone. We don't have to talk about anything. I just want you here with me." His voice hitched. "Thank you."

"I don't get what Finn is so upset about," Sarah said, taking Kurt's hand. He sighed, muting the phone.

"He's… Adam, this new b…  _man,"_  Kurt said, fighting to get out every word, "is a lot like Finn. And Finn is jealous."

"No way," Sarah replied, looking at Kurt as though he'd grown a second head. "Adam's not like Finn. He's like _you."_

"Um," Kurt said, and blushed. "… Yes, I suppose he is."

"And Finn's not jealous of  _you,"_  Sarah continued.

"No," Kurt agreed. "But – it's the three of us, together. So maybe there's no reason for jealousy."

"He's worried that he did something wrong, and he's not good enough," said Frances. They both turned to stare at her. "It's pretty obvious," she added.

"That… doesn't sound much like Finn," said Sarah, but she looked thoughtful.

"No," said Kurt, equally thoughtfully. "Maybe that's why none of us could see it." He gazed at the stairs, then unmuted the phone. "Sweetheart," he said, and whatever Puck said back to him made him smile. Kurt wasn't all better, but he was a lot closer than he had been when Frances had walked in that afternoon.

"Can I – can we talk to him?" Frances said to Sarah, and after a moment, she nodded. She took her hand and they walked together down the stairs to the basement.

Finn was sitting on the couch next to Carole, gripping her hand tightly, talking quietly to her. Carole glanced up at them and shook her head once, so Sarah stopped at the top of the stairs and sat down on the step, tugging Frances down to sit next to her.

"She'll let us know when he's ready for us," she said. "Why'd you want to talk to Finn?"

Frances thought. "I guess I feel the most bad for him, of all of you," she said. "I wanted to see what I could do to help."

"I'm not surprised," Sarah said. "'cause you're the resin."

"What?"

She looked over at Frances. "The resin. You looked it up. What is resin?"

"It's the sticky stuff that flows beneath the bark and protects the tree when it's wounded," she said.

"Exactly."

"But you're the one who took care of  _me_  when I cut my finger," Frances objected. "Wouldn't that make  _you_  the resin?"

"I can be your resin," Sarah said. "But you're resin for everybody else. For me, for my brother. For Brian. Remember when he had that concussion?"

She did. Brian had slipped on an icy patch last month, after the first cold spell but before they'd had a chance to start putting salt down. He'd gone down right in front of the school and had knocked himself right out. Frances had been terrified, but she'd stayed with him, holding his hand, while the ambulance came. "I didn't do anything," she said. "I was just there."

"Sometimes that's the best thing you can do," Sarah insisted. "Trust me. I'm really bad at being there. Me and my brothers, we tend to run away when things get complicated."

Frances thought about Timothy heading out the door earlier, and about Puck, still far away, with his rock star – Adam. "But you come back," she said. "That's all that matters."

"Not really. The leaving, it sticks with people. They don't trust us as much afterwards."

"Us?"

Sarah nodded, chewing on a cuticle. "I do it, too. I'm just saying, that someday I'll probably do it it to you."

"Are you trying to apologize in advance?" She took Sarah's finger out of her mouth. "Don't."

"Don't apologize, or don't do that with my finger?"

"Neither. I mean, both. Don't do either one. You have nothing to apologize for." She could feel herself bristling, and she tried to relax her irate feelings. "How do you  _know_  you're going to leave?"

"Because I always have, before." Sarah shrugged. "You noticed how many friends I have hanging around."

Frances was quiet for a minute. "Because you left them all?"

"Before they could leave me," she said. "Preemptive abandonment. Safer that way. I got to choose when, at least, that way." She held up her hands for Frances to inspect. All the cuticles were ragged.

Frances ran a thumb over the poor abused cuticles. "Well, I can be resin for  _these,_  at least. I have some oil you can put on them."

"See? You can't even help yourself. You just do it." Sarah didn't sound bothered by this, though.

"Why would you leave me?" Frances said. "I mean... what would make you want to? So I can be prepared."

Sarah thought for a minutes. "I'm not sure," she said at last. "But I'll let you know when I think of a possible reason."

"All right, girls," Carole called. She sounded tired.  _Being a parent is a lot of work,_ thought Frances, as they tiptoed down the stairs,  _even when your kids are mostly grown._ Finn sat, silent and red-faced from crying, on a long L-shaped green couch. Sarah edged her way around the big square coffee table and sat right next to Finn, in the corner of the L, one arm around his waist. He seemed to take strength from this in much the same way he'd done with Kurt earlier, just by having her nearby.

"I don't know what I meant to say," Frances said, settling on the short end of the L.

"Thanks, anyway," Finn said. His voice was hoarse. He really did look kind of  _broken._  "I'm sorry about this, Frances. I'm not in the habit of making a scene in front of guests."

"We wanted to know if there was anything that was confusing for you, if you had any questions," said Carole. "I know Sarah's told you a little about the boys' situation, and that it's private." He eyebrows went up, and Frances hastened to nod. "Good. I figured we could trust you to keep this to yourself. They're having enough trouble without adding anything else."

Finn's sigh spoke volumes as to how much trouble he was having. "I won't say anything," Frances said. "My... my parents wouldn't get it. I'm not sure I do, either. But... I'm sorry, that you're so sad."

Finn smiled at her, surprised and grateful, and that made her blush. "That's really nice of you."

"Frances said she understood how you were feeling," Sarah said, patting his chest.

"Sarah," Frances hissed, feeling her blush deepen.

Sarah waved it away. "No, really, this is important. She thought  _you_ thought had done something wrong, and that you weren't good enough.  _Is_ that really how you're feeling?"

Finn looked away, cornered by his mother's insightful gaze and the two girls, and coughed. "Um. Something like that."

"Well, that  _sucks,"_  Sarah said. Now her hand on his chest gave him a little whack, and he flinched as though she'd really hit him. "Since when is my  _brother_  allowed to make mistakes, but you're not?"

"It's complicated, Sarah," he said, but she shook her head vigorously.

"No, not this part. This part is easy. You heard what Tatenui said. It doesn't matter how many times you mess up, because we're going to love you anyway. Noah, too."

"I - I don't really want to be  _done,_  Sarah," he said, looking anguished, "but I don't know if I can go on after what happened, either. There's too much stuff between us."

They were all silent for a moment.

"Maybe... if you had something," Frances said. "To help you heal. Like resin." When they looked at her, she struggled to explain. "I only met him the one time, but could hear, on the phone, how much  _better_  Puck was. How much he'd healed. Like - the resin had helped."

"You mean Adam is his resin?" Sarah asked, and Finn didn't flinch this time when he heard it. He gazed at Carole. He looked - hopeful.

"I've got something like that," he said.

"Finn," Carole said, heavily, but he shook his head.

"Mom, you've trusted me and Puck and Kurt so far. You said we have to make our own mistakes. This one - I can't really explain it, but it's like... it's not like anything else." He swallowed. "Maybe I need it. Maybe it's  _not_  a mistake."

"What are you talking about?" Sarah said, but Carole shook her head.

"Later. Let's take this one step at a time, all right?" She reached out and pulled Finn into a hug. Sarah leaned with them, her arm still around him. Frances felt a lump in her throat at this kind of family closeness, so different from the way things were with her own family.  _I want this,_  she thought.  _I want my family to be like this._

The four of them returned to the living room upstairs, Finn with his box of cookies. The first thing he did was to go right to Kurt, and gently take the phone from his hand, being careful not to hang up, and set it on the table. Then he took Kurt's startled face in his hands, and kissed him, right in front of Frances. She was embarrassed, but only a little, because Sarah had been right.  _It was just like in a story._

Sarah's arm slipped around her waist, and she leaned in to whisper in her ear. "What you said to him. It was perfect. You're so smart."

The compliment - not to mention the sensation of Sarah's breath against her skin - made her squirm a little, but she grinned. "I'm going to remind you someday that you said that."

"Ammunition," Sarah said, considering her. "All right. I'll grant you that."

They settled into the chairs before the screen, watching the performers. Frances was glad to discover they hadn't missed Lady Gaga, and even though the performance was a little weird - especially the part where she lit her piano on fire - her singing was fantastic.

"Are you sure he's going to be on?" said Sarah.

"The announcer said at the end," Kurt said, snuggling into Finn's arm and picking up the phone again. "It's only halfway done."

Finn barely reacted when Kurt said into the phone, "Have you been having any more of those dreams – about… your daughter?" He listened, then smiled. "I wonder if she'll really sound like that, someday. By the time we graduate from high school, she'll be talking." There was a pause, and he wrinkled his brow. "What do you…" Kurt suddenly was outraged. "Noah… you  _can't_ drop out of school."

"No way," Finn said, shocked.

"Deal with this when he gets back," Burt said, from the kitchen. "Don't try to solve this tonight. He's exhausted."

Kurt complained loudly when Taylor Swift won Artist of the Year over Lady Gaga, but it was eclipsed by the appearance of the words ADAM LAMBERT in enormous letters along the back of the stage.

"Here we go," Carole said, glancing at Finn. "You okay?"

"Yeah, mom, I'm okay," said Finn, and he did look okay. Sarah scooted forward, onto the edge of her seat.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UP4lnWqQ-oA> -  _definitely watch this one if you haven't seen Adam's performance at the AMAs!_

A rich voice drifted from the television, and there was the man Kurt had identified as Adam, sitting on a stool in the center of the stage, wearing the grey suit.

"What  _is_ that thing on his shoulder?" Kurt wondered. "It looks like a robotic hedgehog."

He held a high note for what seemed to Frances like a long time, and then the stage lights came up, and Frances could see dancers surrounding him. The dancers weren't wearing suits, or much of anything, really. They were - they were - she blushed at what they were doing. And the lyrics were more than a little suggestive.

"Is he  _walking_  that guy across the stage on a  _leash?"_  demanded Sarah, and Frances heard herself gasp as Adam pulled the dancer's face into his crotch.

"Oh my god," Kurt said mildly. Into the phone, he said, "No, he's in the other room. Oooh." Kurt winced. "That note was a little sharp…  _and_  that one. Aaaand that one was flat."

"This is kind of embarrassing," Sarah said to Frances.

"I - I've never seen outfits like that before," Frances stammered.

"Oh - not that," Sarah said, dismissively. "It's his  _singing._  He's  _terrible._  Really, he was much better on American Idol."

"What makes you – oh." Kurt make a little throaty noise as Adam cupped his bass player's head and gave him a deep, full-tongue kiss. "Well."

"It might be bedtime for you girls," Carole said pointedly.

Sarah flapped her hands in protest. "Are you kidding? This is my brother's new  _boyfriend._  I can't miss this - talk about  _ammunition."_  Her eyes glittered, and Frances saw the  _isn't life hilarious_  smile cross her face.

When it was over, they turned off the television and gave each other uneasy looks. "Uh," Carole said.

"I thought he was pretty good, actually," Finn said, and they all stared at him. "Really," he protested. "I mean, it was over the top, but... Puck's kind of like that himself, right?"

"Oh… sweetheart," Kurt said into the phone, and he gave a heavy sigh.

"Is he okay?" Sarah asked.

"No... Noah's missing him. I can tell. And Adam Lambert is typically an excellent performer. Something was definitely off tonight." Kurt sighed again, unhappily. "I bet he's missing you, too."

Finn's face echoed Kurt's unhappy expression, and he rubbed little circles on Kurt's back, but he seemed remarkably calm now.  _Something had changed for him._  Frances wished she knew what it was.

"I want  _you_ ," Kurt said to the phone. "It doesn't matter what I deserve. Thank you for calling. Get some sleep, and call me tomorrow before you head out." He disconnected the call and tossed the phone on the table, running both hands over his face. "God. What kind of insanity is this?"

"Adam Lambert," Finn said thoughtfully.

"I'm not sure I liked him very much," Frances admitted to Sarah as they bagged up the remaining chocolate chip cookies.

"You'll like him better when you hear the songs he did for American Idol," Sarah said. "I bet we can find those on the Internet somewhere. We'll look tomorrow."

Frances took first turn in the bathroom, which connected through to Kurt's room on the other side. Frances paused as she realized exactly who was in that bedroom. "Mr. Hummel and Carole let them  _sleep together?"_  she squeaked, setting her toothbrush down on the counter.

"Yeah," Sarah said, struggling out of her purple velour top. "They decided a while back it was way more important for the three of them to feel like they had a place to be safe."

Frances felt a little faint at the idea of Puck and Finn and Kurt, in one bed,  _doing things,_  but thankfully her brain just left a great big empty blank where she tried to come up with what that might look like. "My parents would kick me out of the house if I did that with even  _one_  boy," she said.

"My Ma  _did_  kick Noah out of the house," Sarah said soberly. "For exactly this reason."

"Oh." She gave Sarah an apologetic look, but Sarah shook her head.

"It's not you. Don't worry about it."

But Sarah still looked sad by the time they crawled into the guest bed, and when Frances said, "I'm sorry about your mom," she didn't expect Sarah to burst into tears. But she did.

"Oh," Frances said unhappily, and hugged Sarah tight while she cried.

"I don't really miss her, most of the time," she said, when the tears had slowed. "Not most of the time. Just - every now and then, it's... it's bad."

"I bet it is," Frances said. She moved the wisps of hair that had escaped Sarah's French braid out of her face. Then she remembered the present. "I got you something."

"Really?" Sarah said, smiling, and that was enough for Frances to get out of bed and take the wrapped gift out of her bag. She put it on Sarah's lap, and Sarah dug into the wrapping with her fingernails. "Oh!"

"Do you - do you like it?" Frances said, holding her breath.

It was a jewelry-making kit, one she'd found at the bead store. "I can show you how to make earrings," she added, pointing to the golden beads. "They're not amber, but they're kind of pretty, like that."

Sarah set the box to the side, carefully, and for a terrifying moment Frances was reminded of Finn, taking the cell phone out of Kurt's hands before he kissed him.  _She's not going to - she can't -_

Then Sarah hugged her, tighter than before, and Frances was left breathless. "Thank you," Sarah said, "I love it." And she really sounded like she meant it.

"I like - doing things with you," Frances said. "Maybe we can do this together."

"Yeah," Sarah said happily. "It's a perfect thing for best friends to do."

 _Best friends,_  Frances thought, as Sarah turned off the light.  _So that's what we are._


	7. Stars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now that Archer's Hand is done, I'm going back to pick up some loose ends. This story is not likely to end any time soon, because there will always be more Sarah, but I know there are at least two more chapters to be written and posted right after this one.   
> Can I also say I'm kind of tickled to be writing the last of this in Santa Fe, just down the street from the hotel where Puck and Adam spent their first night together?   
> Enjoy.  
> -amy

 

After the previous night's drama, Frances thought she might feel glad to have some distance from the Hummel household, but when she got home the next day it only took her a half hour to start missing them. Not just Sarah, either –  _them_ , all of them, the whole crazy bunch of them. Even Mr. Hummel, who was still a little bit scary to her.

So when Sarah called later that afternoon with the restless question, "You want to go to the mall?" Frances said immediately she would ask her mother to drive them. She was old enough to walk around the mall by herself, now, and Frances' mother gave her a small allowance to buy clothing each month, along with spending money for refreshments and movie tickets and things like that, so it wouldn't be all window shopping.

Frances' mother tut-tutted when she saw Sarah step out onto the Hummel's porch. "What is it?" Frances asked, even though she supposed she knew what, already. She wanted her mother to say it out loud, which of course she wouldn't.

"She's going to catch her death of cold," her mother said instead, which was a safe piece of commentary on Sarah's admittedly eclectic wardrobe. Today she had opted to wear a plaid skirt short enough to get her suspended from of school, over red tights and clunky black lace-up boots. On top she had a fitted blazer, under which she wore the same white blouse she'd worn to Hanukkah services at the synagogue, with spills of lace at the neck and sleeves. Her hair was loose and covered her shoulders.

Frances couldn't say in front of her mother that she approved of this particular combination of clothing, so she chose to say, "I don't always think Sarah makes the best choices about what to wear," which was true. She could let her mother think what she wanted about what that meant. It was just easier that way.

Her mother's smile was pleasant enough, at least, and didn't look too obviously fake. "Good morning, Sarah," she said as Sarah climbed into the back of their station wagon.

"Hey," Sarah said, with a little wave. She wasn't smiling, but Frances knew by now that this didn't mean Sarah wasn't being friendly. After she buckled herself in, she passed a paper bag up to the front seat. "I made some sufganiyot to eat after dinner, Mrs. Preston. Can you bring them with you back to the house?"

"Oh – certainly." She looked a little confused, but when she caught a whiff of what was in the bag, her expression changed to one of delight. "What  _are_  they? They smell delicious."

"Jelly doughnuts," Sarah said. "For Hanukkah. It's over now, but I didn't have time to make any until this morning, and Frances liked the ones we got at the bakery so much, I figured I should make mine. They're a lot better."

She said this matter-of-factly, as though it was a foregone conclusion that her own baking would be better than something you could buy. Frances thought this might actually be the truth.

She looked down at Sarah's hand, next to her on the seat. Sarah was wearing a silver bracelet and a silver ring, with a chain connecting the two. Spread across her hand, in the midst of the chain, was a silver pendant, a stylized eye, that Frances thought she recognized as Egyptian.

"What's that?" Frances asked, touching the bracelet-ring-pendant combination.

Sarah still didn't smile, but her eyes twinkled at Frances, and she sounded like she might be trying not to laugh. "It's an eye of Horus. Adam Lambert has one tattooed on his arm. Kind of funny I've had this all along, huh?"

"What a coincidence," Frances said, covering her own grin.

"So what are you girls shopping for today?" her mother asked. Frances had been wondering the same thing. Sarah shrugged.

"Earrings," she said, and Frances immediately noticed that every one of Sarah's thirteen earring holes was empty, even the ones high up on the top of her ears. "And I need to buy a scarf for my brother."

"You might look at Macy's; I think they're having a sale on their winter clothing."

"Oh, not that kind of scarf," Sarah corrected. "Silk. Kurt likes pretty things."

Her mother didn't have any kind of response to that, for which Frances was infinitely glad. It wouldn't have been a particularly favorable response, if she'd chosen to be honest.  _Don't talk about Kurt any more,_  was the silent plea she sent to Sarah with her eyes, but Sarah wasn't looking at her.

"Well, call me when you're done, and I'll come pick you up. Dinner's at six."

"Can Sarah stay over tonight?" Frances asked. Then she realized she hadn't even thought about asking Sarah first. She glanced at her in consternation, but Sarah was already nodding.

"That would be all right," her mother allowed, "if Sarah's… if you get permission to stay, Sarah."

"Yeah." She turned to Frances. "I was thinking we could make some of those earrings, from the kit you got me? As a present for Carole."

Frances shook her head. "Keep the kit for another time. I have lots of beads and wire at home. No problem."

Frances' mother didn't say anything else until they got to the mall, but as they were climbing out of the car, she said mildly, "Francie, a word with you?" Sarah went to the curb and waited while Frances went to her mother's window. Her mother put a hand on top of Frances' and patted it, the gesture of universal condescension. Frances tried not to bristle.

"I know you're concerned about Sarah after the loss of her mother," she said, "and it's very kind of you. But I think you might be spending a little too much time with… this one girl."

"She's my friend," she said, a little more fiercely than she would ordinarily speak to her mother, and she saw her draw back. She tried to be reasonable. "It's winter vacation, mother. Nobody's going to care who I'm spending time with over winter break. It's not going to matter until we get back to school."

"I'm glad to hear you're thinking about that. Your reputation is the most important thing you can have. You don't want to spoil that, not before you get to high school."

Frances chewed on her lower lip, then caught herself and stopped. "Why… do you think I would spoil my reputation by spending time with Sarah, exactly?"

"We can discuss that later," her mother said, putting both hands back on the wheel. "Call me when you need to be picked up, all right?"

Sarah smirked at her when she joined her on the sidewalk. "Your mom's not so crazy about me, huh?"

There was no point in trying to lie. She didn't think she could, with Sarah, anyway. "No."

"It's no big." Sarah shrugged. "I don't care, as long as you can handle it."

"I can handle it," Frances said. "My mother doesn't know what she's talking about, anyway."

But she was particularly aware of the eyes of other people on them as they walked through the mall together. She knew they were a mismatched set. Frances' hair was smooth and styled, and her crisply ironed blouse was tucked into her appropriately knee-length skirt; her smart ankle boots wouldn't have offended even the most rigid middle school fashion police. Sarah, on the other hand... she might have run a brush through her wavy hair that morning, or she might not have, and it probably wouldn't occur to her to care. Frances decided it wouldn't have made her any prettier, either way.

Sarah paused as they passed a bench and plopped her ragged canvas bag down on it. She dug in one of the front pockets and pulled out a handful of hair elastics. "I need you to braid my hair."

"Uh – okay?" Frances glanced around. "Right here?"

"Yeah," Sarah said. She sat down on the bench, looking over her shoulder at her expectantly. "Those French braids, like you did the other day in the kitchen. Can you get all my hair off my neck?"

Frances tried not to notice the passers-by watching them with curiosity as she reached into her purse for her hairbrush. Sarah's hair was thick and stuck up in all directions, nothing like the smooth slippery hair of the dolls on which she'd learned to French braid. "I think I can," she said. "If I tried to do it on my own hair, I'd need a hundred bobby pins, but your hair doesn't need any."

"Glad it's good for something," Sarah growled. "Sometimes I think I should just shave it all off."

"No!" Frances blurted, digging her fingers into Sarah's curls. She made herself let go, and sighed. "Don't do that. You… you have beautiful hair."

"You think?" She sounded genuinely surprised. "I always wanted hair like yours."

"Everybody has straight hair," Frances said. "I can't do anything with it. It just… sits there."

"Golden, though," Sarah said. "Like the flax in the Rumpelstilskin story." She didn't sound envious, just ordinary, as though she were pointing out an interesting fact. Frances had never had anybody describe her hair _._  She didn't exactly know how to respond.

"Thank you," she finally said.

When she was done, Sarah poked and patted all over her head, feeling the way Frances had tucked the ends in underneath. When she turned to face her, she had a broad grin, and Frances grinned back automatically, because when Sarah smiled like  _that,_  you couldn't help but smile too.  _Like an angel,_  she thought randomly.

"Thank  _you,"_  she said. "Now come on. I'm gonna buy thirteen new pairs of earrings, and wear one of each of them."

Frances thought, if her mother caught her buying anything from the costume jewelry store they went to, she would make Frances take it back.  _Cheap,_  she would have said, and she wouldn't have been talking about the price. But Frances didn't think she could say that to Sarah.

She certainly did come up with an eclectic collection. Little black top hats, and cats chasing balls of string, and purple peace signs, and neon Slinkies. Frances made a face when Sarah held up the dangly rainbows.

"They're very retro," she said, "but don't you think they're kind of… young? I mean, I was into rainbows when I was nine."

Sarah looked genuinely dismayed. "Shit, Frances, who doesn't like rainbows? And we're only eleven. You telling me you're in such a hurry to grow up?"

Frances watched Sarah hold the rainbows up to her lobes, peering at herself in the tiny mirror on the wall of the store, and sighed in frustration. "Anyway, rainbows are sort of  _gay,_  right?"

"Yeah. So I'm celebrating my brothers. What's wrong with that?" She raised an eyebrow. "Don't try to tell me you think there's something wrong with being gay."

Frances didn't. Not exactly. "I just don't want anybody thinking  _you're_  like that."

Sarah stared at her. Frances felt like she was shrinking under her gaze. "No," she said after a moment. "You don't want anybody thinking  _you're_  like that. Like it was something that could rub off on you? Like my brothers' fucking sexual orientation is some kind of… fungus?"

"No," Frances said weakly, but Sarah had already wheeled away from her. She slapped her dozen-plus-one pairs of earrings down on the counter.

"Here," she spat to the startled woman behind the desk. "I'll take these."

Frances trailed a few steps behind Sarah as she stormed out of the store, trying to decide if she should attempt to apologize. Chances were, Sarah might yell at her – not that she didn't deserve it - and she didn't want to make a scene.

They wound up outside the kitchen gadget store on the other side of the mall. Sarah didn't look her in the eye, but glared at a spot just past her shoulder. She jabbed an earring into each of the empty holes in her lobes, making it look easy. "I'm going in to get something expensive and nearly pointless for Noah," she said. "You going to come in, or are my rainbows too fucking gay for you?"

"I'm coming in," Frances said meekly, not even wincing at Sarah's language.

Sarah wasn't letting up. "Because if you'd rather not hang out anymore, I can sure as hell find my own way home."

"Sarah," she protested. "Come on. I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that."

"Okay, then… exactly how did you  _mean it?"_  Sarah crossed her arms, eyebrow cocked, waiting for an answer.

Frances took a deep breath and let it out. "I don't think there's anything wrong with being gay. My babysitter's gay. I mean – the boy who used to babysit for me is. Not that I still have a… So it's not a problem for me, okay?" She waited until Sarah gave her a grudging nod. "But it is a problem for… for some people."

Sarah's jaw clenched. "For your parents."

"For my mother. I don't think my dad cares." She wasn't sure, but her dad was usually way more willing to talk with her about things like this. Her mother mostly just ignored them, pretended they didn't exist, or sometimes made subtly cutting comments before moving on to something more appropriate.

"Is that why she doesn't want you hanging out with me?" she demanded.

"I think so," Frances said. "I'm not exactly sure, but… something like that." She sank to the bench beside Sarah and rested her forehead in her hand. "I'm sorry," she said again.

Frances felt Sarah's fingers on the back of her neck, brushing her hair away, then giving the muscles of her shoulder a little squeeze. It made Frances tense up for a minute, but it felt good, too, and she tried to relax.

"Okay," Sarah said. "That kind of sucks, but I guess it's not your fault, what your mom thinks. But seriously, Frances, you can't worry so much about what other people think."

Frances didn't really know how to do that, but she nodded, and Sarah seemed appeased.

The kitchen gadget store went a little beyond Frances' very basic cooking experience, but like she did most of the time, Sarah seemed to know what she was doing. She walked up to the front counter and announced, "I need something you'd find in a gourmet kitchen. Something totally awesome."

"A Kitchen Aid," said the cashier. "Unless you already have one? It's not cheap, though."

Sarah blanched at the price tag. "How about something a little smaller? Say, less than twenty dollars?"

The woman thought for a minute, then took the two girls over to a display of knives. "This mandoline slicer is fantastic," she said. "I wish someone would buy me one."

Sarah had her gift-wrap it. "I made a picture frame for Tatenui," she told Frances, "and caramel-turtle fudge for Finn. Now I just need a scarf for Kurt."

They tried Macy's, but everything was either too ordinary or too expensive for Sarah. Frances hesitated, then held up a plain blue scarf. "You could paint a design on this," she suggested.

Sarah considered this. "What kind of design?"

"Uh… paisleys, or something floral? Or musical notes – he's a singer, right?"

"Yeah," Sarah said, nodding slowly. "I think Kurt would like that. What would I use, though?"

Frances tried to explain. "You use this stuff called gutta; it's rubbery, and you paint your design outline with that. Then you take fabric dye and mix it with alcohol and water, and brush it in to fill in the pattern, and dry clean it to take off the gutta. It's really easy. I have everything at my house."

"You're very… crafty," Sarah said, as they walked out with her purchase. Frances ducked her head and smiled.

"That's my mother's influence. I think she owns every back issue of Martha Stewart Living."

"Alphabetized?" Sarah said, grinning back, and Frances relaxed some of the tension in her limbs. It seemed she'd been forgiven.

* * *

Sarah didn't have a lot to say on an average day, but after dinner she seemed particularly quiet. Frances wasn't sure if she should try to draw her out or just leave her alone, so she opted to watch and hope Sarah might give her some kind of clue as to her mood.

They sorted through Frances' bead collection, and Sarah chose a selection of pretty ones to use in Mrs. Hudson's earrings. Frances showed her how to twist the wire with the needle-nosed pliers, and wasn't really surprised when Sarah's design turned out complex and beautiful. Frances worked on a knotted hemp bracelet using a design she'd just learned. They sat side by side for a while, and it felt companionable, if not totally comfortable.

"I'm making Christmas dinner," Sarah said at one point, breaking the silence. "Never done that before. You can come over, if you want."

"I'd love to," Frances said honestly. "But my father would kill me if I missed dinner on Christmas. It's kind of a family holiday. But you could come eat with us, if you prefer."

Sarah shrugged. "Noah said he'd be home by Christmas. I should plan to be home too. Wouldn't want to miss him."

"Definitely." Frances held out the finished bracelet to Sarah, who held it up and admired it. "I imagine you're relieved he's coming home?"

Sarah didn't answer for a few moments. "It's funny," she said at last, setting the second finished earring aside. "I figured he'd be gone for a while. Weeks, for sure. Months, probably. Even longer. I think I, like, got emotionally ready for him  _not_  to be around? And then… he said he  _would_  be."

Frances watched Sarah fiddling with the needlenose pliers with mild alarm, and she reached out to take them from her hands before she cut herself. "So… you  _don't_  want him to come home?"

Sarah shook her head. "No… that's not it. I just don't know if I can trust that he actually will, when he says he's going to. Because… well, because I guess my dad never did, or my brother. And I know Noah's not exactly like that, but…" She sighed. "But he kind of is."

"You don't want to get your hopes up," Frances guessed. Sarah nodded. "And he said he's coming home by Christmas… but now you're not sure if he will? And it's almost worse, having him promise that, but not follow through?"

"Right," Sarah said, with a relieved sigh. She smiled weakly at Frances. "How do you know me so well?"

Frances shrugged, feeling embarrassed. "I just listen to what you're telling me."

"Yeah, well, there haven't been too many people in my life doing that. So… thanks." She pointed to the earrings. "For everything. Can I pay for the beads and wire and hooks? Those can't have been cheap."

"No, thank you – I mean, I wouldn't even know how much to ask you for."  _And my mother paid for all of it,_  was what she wanted to say, but she didn't want Sarah to feel uncomfortable, like she was taking charity.

While Sarah got ready for bed, Frances went downstairs to say good night to her parents. Her father kissed her and went immediately back to his football game, but her mother set down her needlework.

"Sarah did call… for permission, didn't she?" her mother asked.

"She called Mr. Hummel, before dinner. He said it was fine." Frances watched the frown lines appear on her mother's cheeks. "What is it?"

Her mother looked away. "What do you mean?"

"I mean every time I mention Mr. Hummel, you get this…  _expression._  Like you don't approve. But I don't understand, mother, because he's a good father, and he loves Sarah a lot, and Kurt –" She stopped. "I don't understand," she repeated.

Closing her eyes, her mother sighed. "Sarah… she's still so young. As are you, Frances. And there's no reason the sins of the father should be visited upon the child. But to have her move right in with him –" She shook her head regretfully.

"What?" said Frances. She didn't generally consider herself particularly unaware, but in this case, she was clearly missing something. "What did Mr. Hummel  _do?"_

Her mother glanced over at her father, oblivious in front of the television, then turned back and took Frances' hand, very serious now. "I'm the first person to say a child needs both of her parents. But there's something shameful to have her move right in with him, as though he hadn't done anything wrong. And that boy of his – well…" She shook her head regretfully. "He clearly needs a strong father figure."

It still took Frances a few moments, but then she realized what her mother was  _saying._  And – she couldn't help it – she  _laughed._ "Mother," she said, still laughing, "Sarah isn't Mr. Hummel's daughter. She has a dad. He left when she was a little girl."

Her mother sighed. "I know you want to believe the best in everyone, Frances, but this is more complicated than that. When a man adopts a little girl… well, it's pretty clear what happened. It's just a shame she has to have her nose rubbed in it."

Frances shook her head firmly. "No, mother, you're just wrong. Mr. Hummel didn't have an affair with Sarah's Ma. I'm sure of  _that._ That's not the reason he's adopting her."

"It's –" She paused, clearly thinking. "All right, Frances. I'll play along. What  _other_  reason could there possibly be?"

Frances felt the moment of truth roll over her like a stormcloud. There was no way she wasn't going to tell. "Kurt is Sarah's brother's boyfriend. They met and fell in love, and when Sarah's Ma started getting sick, Puck moved in with Kurt and Mr. Hummel. And Sarah, and P—"

" _Frances Mary Preston,"_  her mother hissed, leaning into her, like she was dealing with some secret. "That's just about all I want to hear from you."

"I'm just telling the truth," Frances snapped back, and her father looked from the big screen long enough to blink in surprise at the two of them. She shook her head. "Mr. Hummel's wife  _died,_ of cancer or something. He's in love with  _Mrs. Hudson._  He didn't – Mrs. Puckerman and he, they  _never_ …" She shuddered to think of it. "Really, mother, I'm telling the –"

"Enough. Frances, go on up to bed now. We're done here." Her mother looked grim and stony as she marched Frances toward the stairs. "Don't say one word of this to Sarah. Not one word, do you understand?"

It wasn't the command, but the tone of voice that made Frances acquiesce. She stumbled upstairs without even a good night, and opened the door to her dark room. When she climbed into her bed and found Sarah's warm body under her covers, it was just too much. She began to cry.

Sarah didn't say one word. She just wrapped her up tight, and held on while the tears came. Frances couldn't even protest. The words she'd heard her mother say to her friends came to her then, when she was talking about Mrs. Puckerman, long ago... the worst of them,  _slut,_  echoing in her head. She couldn't tell Sarah that Mr. Hummel was being lumped in with  _that._ She shook with the immensity of the injustice and stupidity of the world, and her inability to change it.

Eventually Frances could feel Sarah's hand on her hair, her whispered shush, and she calmed down enough to wipe her eyes. Sarah tucked a tissue into her hand before she could even ask for one.

"What… are you doing?" she asked. She wasn't even sure what she was asking.

"I'm looking at your stars," Sarah said - which was such a non sequitur that Frances had to look up at her ceiling. Then she gasped. She actually  _gasped._

The ceiling was glowing with tiny pinpricks of light. For a moment, Frances wondered if someone had spattered the roof of her house with glow-in-the-dark paint. But then, the pinpricks resolved into actual constellations.  _Stickers. Glowing stickers._

"Orion," she whispered. "And – and Ursa Major, and Pegasus, and…"

"My favorite are the Pleiades," Sarah said, pointing at a group of seven stars. "All sisters. I always wanted a sister, you know?"

Frances stared at her in the dark. "You did this."

"It's hard to reach the ceiling without help," Sarah said, in her matter-of-fact way.

She shook her head. "Who -?"

"He didn't give it away, huh?" Frances could see that angelic smile, her teeth glowing in the dark as surely as though they were stars themselves. "He's a good dad. Sneaky, too."

Frances retraced the entire evening, as though she were Gretel following a trail of breadcrumbs, back through their night of crafting, to setting the table, and her mother needing her to help -

"You and my father did this while we were cooking," she accused.

Sarah's smile stretched to a laugh. "I thought for sure you'd hear the stepladder. It was loud and squeaky enough to bother the fucking neighbors."

She touched Frances' bare shoulder. Suddenly it felt almost too intimate for her, but she couldn't pull away, either. Her head rested on the pillow, and Sarah lay down beside her.

"I don't deserve you," Frances said. Sarah snorted.

"Give me a break," she said. "You're the one keeping me from going insane here. You, and my brothers, and the music turned up loud with my headphones on."

"And Mr. Hummel."

Sarah was silent for a moment. Then she laughed again, more softly. "Yeah. I guess I keep forgetting him."

"He won't leave, Sarah."  _I won't,_  either, she added to herself, but Sarah didn't answer.

Frances steeled herself before she shifted closer, and this time her head went to Sarah's shoulder. She waited for the rebuff, but Sarah didn't even hesitate; she just put an arm around her, as though she'd been holding people like this all her life. Maybe she had.

"I love the stars," Frances said. "Looking at them makes my own problems look a little smaller."

They fell asleep like that, and when she woke in the middle of the night to find Sarah crying, Frances just shifted her hold so Sarah was contained in her arms, and they went right back to sleep again.


	8. Cookie Dough

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a short chapter today. The 1000 Sarahs playlist is here:   
> http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7002495B1CE34DF7   
> Enjoy!  
> -amy

 

Frances found a CD on her pillow the next morning when she went to make her bed. It had  _Gaga/Lambert_ scribbled on it in permanent marker in a hand she recognized. She tucked it in the drawer in the table by her bed, then she changed her mind and slipped it under some papers on her desk. Her mother was too snoopy by half.

"Guess what," Sarah said, when she called her, and went on without waiting for the inevitable  _what?_  "Noah came home last night."

"What?" she gasped. "You mean – he was  _there?_  And he didn't call you?"

"Totally. But Tatenui said he was really tired, and I guess I get that, after that fucking long drive." She sighed in obvious annoyance. "And now he's  _gone_  again."

Frances fell back onto her bedspread and looked up at the ceiling, where the star stickers waited, invisibly absorbing light and storing it to shine it later at her. "You didn't get to see him at all? Where'd he go?"

"He's got an apartment somewhere in town. Finn's new guy – he gave him a place to stay. But it's fine, really. He's back, and he's safe, and he'll be around when he's ready."

Frances bit her lip. "I feel kind of guilty. I mean, if you'd been there last night, you would have –"

"Nah. He knew where I was. He could've come find me, if he'd needed me."

Frances thought maybe Sarah had been the one to need  _him_  last night, but she wasn't going to say it. "I found your CD," she said instead. "Thank you. What's on it?"

"Lady Gaga's second album,  _The Fame Monster,_  and a couple cuts from her first album,  _The Fame_. And all the Youtube downloads of Adam I could find. No bad words, I promise. I couldn't put the new Gaga stuff on there, because she made Timmy promise not to distribute it. You can listen to it on my iPod, though."

"Thank you," she said again, because she actually liked the Lady Gaga songs. "I'm still not sure if I care much for Adam Lambert."

"Oh, give this a try. Seriously, he's got a really dreamy voice. And I won't be offended if you never listen again. Hey, and guess what? You remember that Christmas karaoke thing you were telling me about? Noah's friend from Glee said she's going, too, and she invited Kurt."

"Are you going to go?" Frances looked at the pencil sketch Sarah had done of her, stuck to the side of the table by her bed. The corner was starting to peel a little. She got a piece of clear tape from her desk and carefully taped it down.

"I think it depends on Noah and when he gets home. But I was kind of thinking I might."

"Even though you don't celebrate Christmas?"

"I do now."

Frances thought about the service they'd attended that Sunday, and all the talk about the Christ child. "You're not Christian, though. You don't believe in Jesus as the son of God."

"I don't know. I guess he was  _a_  son of God, right? We're kind of all sons and daughters of God?"

"You know what I mean."

"Do  _you_  know what you mean? Tell me you think Jesus was really the only son of God, put in Mary's virgin belly. Like, literally?"

"I don't know," Frances said. This whole conversation was making her feel a little uncomfortable. "I guess. I mean, everybody at my church talks about Him like he was really God."

"Do you pray to him?"

"My mother said I should pray to Mary."

Sarah snorted. "So you pray to  _her?_  She's not even a god."

"She's supposed to be holy," Frances protested. "And  _no_ , I don't pray to her either."

"Don't tell me you don't pray at all." Her tone was vaguely teasing, but Frances heard the challenge.

"I do, too," she snapped. "I pray all the time."

"To who?" She hesitated, and Sarah added, "To the big guy himself?"

"No. I – " Frances wasn't sure if Sarah would understand her childhood fear that somehow her prayers to God would get lost, in the pile of all the other millions of people's prayers every day. "I have an angel," she started, then stopped.

"An – angel?"

"Don't laugh, okay?" she pleaded. "Ever since I was a little girl, I've had a picture of this angel, in my head. He's not a big angel, not like Michael or Gabriel or anybody. Just a little one. Not one anybody else would need."

There was a silence on the other end of the line.

"Sarah?" she said.

"And that's who you pray to?" She didn't sound like she was going to laugh.

"Yeah."

"You don't think you deserve a big angel? Or Mary, or – or Jesus, or anybody?" Now Sarah sounded kind of pissed.

"I don't know. I just thought maybe he would listen better." Frances touched the edge of the drawing, considering adding another piece of tape. "I mean, don't you think God's kind of busy? He worked so hard to make the world and then people keep asking for more – more help, more comfort. Can't people take care of themselves? He gave us free will. It seems like we should be responsible for our own messes now."

Now Sarah did laugh, but Frances didn't think it was at her. "Have you even  _read_  the Torah - uh, the Bible? He's kind of a big jerk. Vengeful god, always smiting people?"

"God forgives people if we ask for it. We have to ask, though."

"Why would we have free will if he thought we'd always call?" she murmured.

"What?"

"Nothing. I guess he's a better dad than mine was. Anyway – I'll let you know about Christmas. We've got a few more days to think about it. I don't know what I would sing, anyway. I don't know any Christmas music."

"I can send you some Youtube links," Frances said. "I mean, Christian music, I don't know if you'd like it, but –"

"No, that'd be cool. Thanks. Hey, I got you to like Lady Gaga."

Frances had to smile. "Good point. I guess anything's possible."

* * *

Frances was a little surprised when her mother agreed to take her over to Sarah's house after dinner. "I don't think you should plan to stay the night, Frances," was all she said.

"No, I won't," she promised. "Sarah's brother is home now. She wants to be around for him, in case he plans to come by the house."

Her mother nodded. "He's not staying with… Mr. Hummel?"

"No, he has his own apartment." Frances decided she wouldn't say anything about the baby yet. That might be a little much for her mother to comprehend. Even she was having trouble with it.

Mr. Hummel answered the door. He smiled at Frances, very kindly, and waved at her mother as she pulled out of the driveway. She felt a renewed surge of anger for her mother's presumption to understand who Mr. Hummel was.

"How are you tonight, Frances?" he asked.

"Very well, thank you," she replied, smiling back. "I heard Sarah's brother came home last night. I'm sorry Sarah missed him."

He grimaced. "Yeah, well… life is complicated around here these days."

"It's nice, though," she said. "Isn't it?"

He looked a little startled, but then he smiled again, and nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, it is."

Sarah was in the midst of making cookie dough when Frances found her in the kitchen, singing along to a familiar song. It was one of the Youtube links Frances had emailed her earlier.

"I can't believe it," she marveled. "You  _like_  Amy Grant?"

Sarah waved her wooden spoon at Frances. "Hey, she remade Big Yellow Taxi. I'll give her credit for that. And damn, she's got a pretty voice."

Frances took a turn stirring the dough while she listened to Sarah sing. "You have a pretty voice, too," she said.

Sarah shrugged. "Noah used to say at least our dad gave us  _something._  But it's not really my thing. He's the musician."

"Kurt's a singer, too, right?"

Sarah nodded. "And Finn – he's awesome.  _And_  he plays the drums."

Frances thought Sarah's tone was a little on the worshipful side when she talked about Finn, but she decided it might be inappropriate for her to tease her about it. "Where are they, anyway?"

"Christmas caroling with Glee club."

The cookie dough was apparently never intended to be made into cookies. The oven stayed cool while Sarah passed Frances a spoon and sat down at the counter across from her. "I wrapped all the presents we made. Tatenui's going to get us a tree tonight. You know, I totally don't get that tradition. Why would you cut down a tree to celebrate the birth of a baby?"

Frances took a bite of cookie dough. It was amazing to think she'd reached eleven years old before discovering how incredible cookie dough was. "I'm not even sure, myself," she admitted. "We have a plastic tree."

"So I listened to  _your_  music. Did you listen to the Adam Lambert?" Sarah watched Frances' face and jeered as she turned red. "You didn't, did you? Okay, now I'm going to make you sit here and listen. You might even know this one."

Frances was surprised to discover she did. "He sang  _Tracks of My Tears_ on American Idol?"

"Wait 'til you hear the one from Brigadoon," Sarah boasted.

She had to admit, he sounded good. Both Frances and Sarah sang along, and when Sarah gave her an approving smile, she was willing to sing a little louder. But Sarah got wrapped up in washing the dishes, and so Frances was the only one watching the doorway when Puck appeared.

He looked like he might have been standing out in the hallway listening for a while, because his eyes were red and glistening, but he was smiling. He held up one finger to his lips, then pointed at Sarah. Frances nodded, and gave him a tentative smile in return.

Puck moved silently across the kitchen floor toward the sink, reaching out one hand toward Sarah's left shoulder, and tapped her smartly. While she looked to the left, he ducked to the right.

"Oldest trick, squirt," he crowed, as she spun around to face him. Then he sputtered a soggy protestation as she picked up a glass of water from the sink and threw it in his face.

"You piece of fucking  _shit,"_  she cried, and burst into tears.

Puck took her in his arms and held her close while she sobbed. He shot Frances an apologetic look, but she waved a hand at him. This was what Sarah needed, and she knew it.  _Her brother's home, at last._

"Love you, Sarah," he whispered.

Mr. Hummel ducked his head into the kitchen at some point, but he took in what was happening with one glance and ducked right back out again. Frances considered joining him, but ultimately she just sat down on her stool at the counter and waited for the two Puckerman siblings to return from their world of personal reconnection.

Frances passed him a tissue from the box on the counter, and he gave it to Sarah. She guessed it would be a fatal mistake to try to wipe her eyes for her.

"Where's Kurt?" was Puck's question when she was calm again.

"You just missed them," Sarah said, blowing her nose. "They left for caroling with Glee about a half hour ago."

Puck swore, but he looked determined. "Okay. You know where they're meeting?"

"Mercedes' house?"

"C'mon, then." He took Sarah's hand, and nodded at Frances. "You too. Get your coats. We're going caroling."

Puck was about to head out the door with the girls in tow when Mr. Hummel appeared in front of them, glowering. Even Sarah blanched a little at his expression. "Where in hell do you think  _you're_  going?"

"To find Kurt and Finn," Puck replied, clearly not about to be put aside.

But Mr. Hummel simply said, "I'll drive. You can't all three of you fit in your truck, can you?"

Puck just closed his mouth and nodded, and Sarah grinned at Mr. Hummel.  _If this had been my house, there would have been a lecture. How did Puck get away without one?_

Puck twisted around in his seat to face the back seat. "Hey," he said to Frances. "You were really nice to me, the day of my Ma's funeral. I'm sorry I wasn't so nice back."

"It's okay," she said, taken aback. "I wasn't upset. And… she was your mother."

"Still no excuse to be an asshole."

"Language," Burt reminded, and Puck sighed.

"Sorry. Yeah. I'm pretty good at f- messing up." He turned to Sarah. "That was… Adam, in the kitchen?"

"From Idol," she agreed. He handed her a CD, and she held it in her hands, staring at the cover. "Wow. He signed it to you – and  _Kurt?_ "

"He's just that awesome," Puck nodded solemnly. "I think you'll like him. Burt talked to him on the phone yesterday."

"We're here," Mr. Hummel said, clearly not about to talk about Adam. He nodded at the house. "I bet they're already gone. You want to run in and find out, or should we just drive around until we find them?"

"You could follow the footprints in the snow," Frances suggested.

He looked startled again. "That's brilliant," he said. "And boy, do I feel stupid. Let's do that."

They crept slowly down the street, tracking the trampled drifts on the sidewalk. Once they lost the trail in the darkness, but they backtracked and found it again, going around the corner.

"Open the window," Sarah said, and Mr. Hummel rolled all four windows down, ignoring the cold. They paused on the next corner, listening.

"Nothing," Puck said. "Keep going."

It was almost ten more minutes before they finally heard the sound of voices singing, muffled by the snow.

Puck pulled at the door latch. "Let me out here." He barely let the car roll to a stop before he hopped out and opened the trunk, getting out his guitar and slinging it around his neck. He leaned in on the driver's side window.

Mr. Hummel regarded him with patient good humor. "You gonna bring my boy home tonight?"

"Hey, he's the one with the car," Puck replied, grinning back. "And he might just leave me here."

"I wouldn't count on it." But he waved Puck on, and idled in silence while he tuned up his guitar and began playing as he walked:

_I'll be home for Christmas  
_ _You can count on me  
_ _Please have snow and mistletoe  
_ _And presents on the tree…_

They waited a good long time before Mr. Hummel finally sighed and shifted the car back into drive. "All right, girls. Where to?"

"There's cookie dough at home," Sarah said, and Mr. Hummel looked away for a moment to sniff and blow his nose.

"Okay," he agreed. "Home for cookie dough."


	9. Angel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you, like me, couldn't remember what happened in the last chapter, you might consider going back and rereading it. Sarah and Frances' conversation at the beginning about angels is pertinent. Thanks to Dave Barry for band name ideas. 
> 
> The karaoke scene has been in production for far, far too long. I'd like to thank supergreak for offering the scene with Brittany and her aunt's bar and Sarah singing the first song. I tweaked it, but it's essentially her writing. The last song is by Andrew Ratshin. It wasn't anywhere on Youtube, so I uploaded a recording of it. It's been haunting my playlists since my trip to Santa Fe. 
> 
> The last brief scene falls just after the New Year's Eve kiss at the end of Bending in the Archer's Hand. Enjoy.
> 
> -amy

_The 1000 Sarahs playlist is at<http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7002495B1CE34DF7>_

* * *

Frances hadn't planned to see Sarah at all on Christmas Eve, after Puck got home, but she had ended up coming over for a few hours. "They need time alone together," she said as they sifted through Frances' CD collection. "I don't have a problem with them making out on the couch, but I think they have stuff to talk about they can't really bring up in front of me."

Frances glanced nervously at her half-open door, and went to shut it before saying in a low voice, "What kind of… stuff?"

Sarah grinned, holding out a Michael W. Smith CD to Frances. "You really want to know? Even Tatenui's a little squicked by it."

"Maybe after we're done listening to my Christian pop music," Frances decided. "I think the combination of the two might give me nightmares."

It turned out that Sarah didn't care much for Michael W. Smith, but she liked Petra. "They kind of rock out," she said, nodding her head to  _All About Who You Know_. "I totally would sing in a band like that."

Frances could picture that. "You could sing with Puck while he plays guitar, and Finn could play drums."

This idea completely captured Sarah's imagination, and they spent a good portion of the evening dreaming up names for the band. Frances' favorite was Bones of Contention. Sarah latched onto Crab Shrapnel. "It's the extra junk you get when you crack them," she explained with enthusiasm, "the stuff that flies across the room."

Sarah texted her brother when she was ready to head home. "We're going to decorate the tree," she said, reading his response. "And Kurt has a movie he wants to watch."

Frances watched Sarah pack up her sketchbook and pencils. She wasn't quite sure why she was feeling so anxious. "I'm not going to see you tomorrow, am I?"

"I don't know yet, but I'll ask." Sarah didn't look so happy about this either, but she put on a brave face. "Dude. We hardly saw each other at all for years. We can handle one day."

"I know." Frances laughed. "I used to be so annoyed by you."

"Me?" said Sarah, startled. "What'd I do?"

"Nothing. That was it. You did whatever you wanted to do, and it didn't matter at all what other people thought. I guess it made me mad."

Sarah hoisted her bag onto her shoulder, considering this. "You could do that," she suggested.

Frances shook her head vehemently. "No, I couldn't."

Sarah put a hand on Frances' shoulder and looked deep into her eyes. It didn't matter at all that she was a couple inches shorter. "Yes," she said. "You could."

"My mother," Frances tried faintly, but Sarah squeezed her shoulder.

"Screw her. She doesn't know who you are inside. Only you get to decide that. Parents, they create us, but they don't know us. My Ma, she never knew who Noah was."

Frances shook her head, her stomach hurting with confusion. "How come  _you_  do, then? You… you don't have any problem with who he is. Who he loves. If it bothered your mother so much, why doesn't it bother you?"

"Because he's always trusted me," Sarah said softly. "He never lied to me, even when I was a little kid. He just told me the truth, about everything. Our house was full of fighting and hitting and shit, but I could always count on Noah to tell me what was real. Now he's in love, and it's the most real, most true thing I've ever seen. How can that not be awesome?"

Frances found herself fighting inexplicable tears, and Sarah sighed in exasperation before she hugged her. "It'll be okay," she said. "You're stronger than she is, anyway."

Puck came to the door to get Sarah, while Kurt waited in the Navigator. Frances' father looked a little put off by Puck's appearance, but he smiled anyway, and offered his hand to shake, saying, "Glad to hear you made it home safely, son."

"Thanks for helping Sarah with the stars," he said, shaking it. "She told me about that."

Her dad looked amused. "Not too many opportunities to put one over on my Francie, anymore," he said. "She's too smart for that."

It might have been the emotional conversation they'd just had, but the compliment flustered Frances more than usual. While Sarah and Puck headed back down the driveway, she hugged her dad, which she almost never did. After a moment, he hugged back.

"What was that for?" he said, when she was done.

"I guess Christmas makes me kind of grateful for what I have," was all she could say, and watched Kurt and Puck and Sarah drive away.

* * *

Sarah called her after church the next day. "Merry Christmas," she said. "I bet I had better breakfast than you did."

Frances guessed she was right. "We went to my grandmother's house after service. She makes the thickest, breadiest pancakes you ever tried. Completely inedible, no matter how much butter and syrup you load on top."

Sarah sounded personally offended. "Pancakes are supposed to be  _tender,_  not  _puffy._  I'll make you pancakes the  _right_ way the next time you stay over. Did you get anything good for Christmas?"

Frances considered the pile of this season's clothing, tags still attached, purchased by her mother in two sizes, waiting under the tree. Usually she was happy to model and sort them into  _keep_  and  _take back_ , but this year she had zero motivation to do so. "My dad got me a book of poetry by Willa Cather," she said. "I liked  _My Antonia_  when we read it in reading group earlier this year. And a geocaching class. I think it's supposed to be a father-daughter bonding thing."

"That's cool," Sarah said, and after what she'd said yesterday about being honest, Frances knew she wasn't pretending; she thought it actually  _was_  cool that her dad wanted to spend time with her. This made her feel inordinately happy.

"My babysitter got me some fantasy books, too. You can read them when I'm done with them."

"I guess. I'm not much of a reader. But, maybe? I'm not much for crafts, but I like the earring-making."

Frances hesitated. "Did you ask about tonight…?"

"Britt's going to come by before eight to head over to Christmas karaoke." Sarah sounded nervous, but that wasn't possible, was it? Sarah never got nervous. "She said she can take us, and anybody else who wants to go."

"Did you pick a song to sing?"

"Yeah." There was a thumping sound, then a loud whirring.

"What are you doing?"

"Making dinner… Goddamn fucking knives."

" _Sarah,"_  Frances gasped, "it's  _Christmas."_

"What? I bet Jesus required sharp knives when he made Christmas dinner too. You want me to save you some pie?"

Frances sighed, and smiled despite herself. "Yes. Please."

She had a surprisingly hard time convincing her father to agree to take her over to Sarah's house that evening. "Christmas should be spent with your family, pumpkin."

"But we're all going to the Christmas karaoke. The one they mentioned at church? Mrs. Pierce's daughter is driving us. It's her aunt's bar."

He still looked skeptical. "It's at a  _bar?_  I don't know… did you ask your mother about this?"

"Karaoke's always at a bar," she said, skirting the question. "Anyway, Mr. Hummel's going to go. He'll be there and it'll be no problem, I  _promise."_

This was stretching the truth to breaking, because she didn't know if Mr. Hummel was even aware of this possible plan, but Frances was starting to feel desperate again. She needed to get out of her house, to a place where the world wasn't so perfect and white and crisp and sterile. She wasn't sure when she had started  _liking_ it complex and messy and honest, but she realized that she did. Maybe her dad saw something in her face about this desperation, because he said, "All right. I want you home by ten, though."

By the time they were sitting in the Hummel's driveway, Frances had negotiated for ten-thirty. "Thank you, Daddy," she said, and kissed his cheek. He made a frown that looked suspiciously like a smile, and watched without further comment as she walked up to their front porch.

Sarah was wearing something on her wrist: an ornamental cuff with words inscribed on it. Her eyes gleamed when Frances pointed it out.

"You'll never guess who gave me  _this,_ " she whispered, glancing around in the empty hallway. "It's from  _Adam."_

Frances thought it looked very nice, but the words were even nicer:  _It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are._  "Adam's favorite poet said that," Sarah told her.

The doorbell rang promptly at a quarter to eight. Brittany's nose was red and her eyes were bright under her yellow fleece hat with colored flowers. Under her bright coat, she wore a matching scarf.

Kurt had recently tried to explain Brittany to Frances. "One year - I still think of it as the Year of the Fleece - I'd spent that Christmas sewing and baking with the Pierces, and trying my best to  _not_  think about my mom being gone for the holidays. Mrs. Pierce, unlike my school counselor or my mom's relatives, never tried to make me talk. She just let me make bolts and bolts of fleece scarves, hats, blankets, slippers, and two pairs of gloves. We gave up that last one after two pairs - gloves were really, really tricky." He shook his head. "I guess I'm surprised she still wears those bright monstrosities, but then again... that's Brittany."

Brittany peered into the Hummel's family room. "Who's ready to be kidnapped away for a few hours?"

Puck's eyebrows traveled up. "...Why?"

" _Because_  my aunt Cindy has a bar, and she lets me sing any time I want to, and it's Christmas, so I was going to go sing my favorite Christmas song ever, but it's a duet and I know Kurt knows it. And there's no sense in sitting home on Christmas when you could be singing with  _me._ "

Hearing that one explanation, Frances thought she understood Brittany a lot better. She also thought she liked her. Sarah took her hand and moved forward toward the door, dragging her along.

"Frances has been talking about it for days," she said, grinning at Frances' eye roll. "And I'm not wasting all this Christian music I've been listening to. So we're coming."

"Only I have to be home by 10:30," Frances cautioned.

"We'll get you home," Finn promised.

Kurt glanced at Puck, who sighed and tossed up his hands. "What the fuck. Okay. Let me get my guitar."

"Great!" Brittany clapped her hands. "Mom's waiting in the car."

* * *

"Two more, Cindy," called Arlene, and Cindy poured the pitchers and slid them down the bar. There was a knack to doing it without spilling.

The bells jingled as the door opened again. This time it was an older couple from church, unwinding their mufflers and smiling at the two women behind the bar. She waved at them, and they waved back. It was a better turnout than she'd expected, considering it was Christmas day, even without Brittany and her friends.

Cindy was glad she'd invited Brittany. Her niece really got the Christmas spirit, and so many of the people in her bar were just plain  _lonely_ , or away from family, or didn't believe in anything strongly enough to have any kind of joy this time of year. She was glad that her little corner was cheery without rubbing it in what they were missing. She figured people got enough of that at churches and stores and family reunions. And an opportunity to sing - well, everybody needed that. Even people who couldn't carry a tune in a bucket.

Right now, Britt was enthusiastically and unironically singing "I Believe In Santa Claus" with a slender boy she'd introduced as Kurt. He had a sweet smile, and it grew wider as the song went on. It seemed to be directed at the two boys in the audience, and the two younger girls sitting with them. She thought she recognized the blonde girl from church, too.

"I believe when someone hurts us we should forgive and forget," Brittany sang, looking pointedly at the boy in flannel. The younger girl he sat with looked to be about twelve, but had old eyes. She must be his sister, the way she was leaning onto his shoulder as Brittany and Kurt sang.

Once the song ended, the young girl stood up and hopped onto the little stage, whispering into Kurt's ear. He nodded, gave her a quick hug, and went to sit behind the old upright as Brittany got down and took her seat.

She was tiny, but her presence filled the tiny stage of the pub as she glanced out at the scattered pockets of people who had nowhere better to be on Christmas. Cindy absent-mindedly polished a glass as the girl started to talk.

"Hey," she said, giving the sparse audience a little wave. They called their hellos back, smiling. "I don't usually sing Christian songs - because I'm Jewish - but my friend's been sharing some with me, and there's one song that I'd like to sing tonight. See, I'm neither pregnant nor engaged to anyone named Joseph, but I am a pre-teen Jewish girl, and I've had a really,  _really_  rough December. My Ma died, and my brother ran off, see… and as Mary would've been praying to the same God I am, I figure it's okay to sing her song, even if it  _was_  written by a Gentile."

She took a deep breath, glanced at the thin boy at the piano, and started singing.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYyG6shs644>

_I am waiting in a silent prayer  
_ _I am frightened by the load I bear  
_ _In a world as cold as stone  
_ _Must I walk this path alone?_

 _Be with me now, be with me now  
_ _Breath of Heaven, hold me together  
_ _Be forever near me, breath of Heaven  
_ _Breath of Heaven, lighten my darkness  
_ _Pour over me Your holiness for You are holy  
_ _Breath of Heaven_

 _Do you wonder as you watch my face  
_ _If a wiser one should have had my place?  
_ _But I offer all I am  
_ _For the mercy of Your plan  
_ _Help me be strong, help me be, help me_

The girl's voice cracked on the third "help me", and Cindy was amazed that she made it all the way to the end of the song before running off the stage. The boy in flannel was on his feet in seconds, but the blonde girl was faster, scrambling around chairs to follow her.

Kurt glanced up and exchanged a glance with Cindy at the bar. He pulled the second mike over the top of the piano and played a chord as Britt hopped back up.

"And now for a complete mood shift, I have a song as well. But all of you need to sing along - you know you know it _. On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, a partridge in a pear tree…"_

By the time the whole establishment was done singing the rousing rendition, the dark-haired girl had returned, clutching the hand of the blonde girl and wearing a determined smile. The boy in flannel put a hand on her back, and she leaned on him again, whispering something in his ear. He nodded.

Cindy relaxed. Christmas was a tough time for many people, but it seemed that this family had had more than their share of challenges. She was glad when her bar could provide solace beyond the medicinal.

* * *

"We could go," Frances whispered as they slid back into their chairs.

"No way," Sarah whispered back. "You haven't sung yet."

Frances shook her head. "I told you, I don't sing. Not by myself, anyway."

"So look around you. We practically brought our own freaking choir with us. And anyway, I have one more song. It's not Amy Grant, either."

Frances sat restlessly through a really ponderous version of  _The First Noel_  and Brittany and Finn singing the two parts to  _Good King Wenceslas._ She had to admit, Finn was very handsome when he sang, with his expressive brown eyes and his heart-stopping smile. Puck wasn't singing, but when Kurt wasn't on stage, he was holding his hand, which made Frances feel a little funny. Luckily nobody seemed to mind.  _Maybe on Christmas, nobody wants to be judgmental?_

They all sang along with  _Winter Wonderland,_ and then Kurt was urging Puck up to the stage. "You sang it once," Kurt was saying, "and once more won't kill you."

Puck didn't look anything close to angry, but he rolled his eyes as he got his guitar out of its case and began tuning. "Okay," he said into the mic. "I'm Jewish too, but this is for my pushy boyfriend."

Kurt turned red, and Finn snickered as Puck launched into a familiar tune.

 _I'll be home for Christmas  
_ _You can count on me  
_ _Please have snow and mistletoe  
_ _And presents on the tree..._

"Since when is Noah Puckerman gay?" Brittany's mother whispered. Brittany smiled at her, not in the least concerned by this question, which would have prompted enormous consternation among Frances' family.

"He's not," she assured her mother. "He just loves people."

Frances thought about this as she watched Puck sing. He was singing right to Kurt, and the love in his face would have scared Frances right out of the room, had it been directed at her from  _her_  boyfriend. Kurt was still red, but he was completely transfixed.

She saw Finn's hands clenching in his lap. Frances felt a sudden rush of sympathy for him. Being alone, and watching your boyfriend loving someone else, and not being able to love him back, even if he knew he loved him... she sighed.  _Way too complicated._

"It's not complicated," Brittany said, and Frances realized she'd spoken aloud. She smiled kindly at Frances. "It's just more love. Like Jesus said."

"I'm pretty sure Jesus wasn't loving his neighbor like  _that,"_  Frances whispered, and Brittany looked thoughtfully at Puck on the stage.

"I don't know," she said. "Those apostles were pretty close."

This made Finn choke on his hot chocolate, but Brittany either didn't notice or didn't care. "Sure you don't want to sing?" she said to Frances as the room applauded for Puck. "Mic's open."

But Sarah was already climbing back onto the stage to a smattering of applause. "Ready?" she said to Puck, and he nodded. She held the mic and looked straight at Frances.

"I wrote a song," she said. "And I've never done that before, so I hope it doesn't suck too bad. And it's not really a Christmas song, but it's kind of a Christmas present, so I hope you don't mind if I give it now."

Frances looked at Finn, and at Kurt, who were both smiling at her. "I - " she said.

"She's been working on it for three days," Finn said. "I think it's really good."

"It's better than that," Kurt protested, and Brittany shushed him, because Sarah was talking again.

"I've been doing a lot of praying lately. Because... well, I think God might like taking care of people." She shrugged. "My best friend said something that made me wonder if maybe someone else might be helping out, when He needed a break. Oh, and here's my obnoxious brother; he made up the guitar part." She flourished a hand at Puck, who did a little seated bow, and began:

<http://youtu.be/kmRkaajdMmE>

_Every Sunday God wakes up to everybody's problems  
_ _All those voices asking for forgiveness  
_ _Half asleep he waves his hand to quickly mass absolve them  
_ _Wondering why he constantly relives this  
_ _I don't want to take that time away  
_ _From someone who might really need  
_ _A sign from God that day_

Frances' mouth was suddenly dry, and she took a trembling drink of her soda. She wondered if this was how Kurt felt when Puck was singing to him, because she was pretty sure that right now, she physically couldn't get out of her seat.

 _Angel Michael on his knees  
_ _Trying to find the time to help us  
_ _I don't need such expertise  
_ _I could never be that selfish  
_ _Isn't there a minor angel  
_ _Not an angel one might miss  
_ _I can talk to, I can turn to  
_ _There to handle this_

The guitar was quiet, and Sarah's clear, high voice rang out across the room. The audience were reasonably good listeners, but it wouldn't have mattered if they'd been the rudest crowd of hecklers in the world. To Frances, everybody else had disappeared, and there was just Sarah, singing the words she'd written about her, for her.  _My best friend._

 _Sunday morning in the choir  
_ _I'm the one who's singing off key  
_ _By my bedside in the darkness  
_ _I will say my prayers so softly  
_ _Isn't there a lonely angel  
_ _Not an angel fully booked  
_ _I can call on, I can sing to  
_ _Someone overlooked_

 _Just one angel  
_ _Just one angel  
_ _Angel only I can see  
_ _Just one angel  
_ _Just one angel  
_ _Watching over me_

Sarah's face was solemn, until she got to the third verse. Then she grinned at Frances, but Frances couldn't reciprocate, even though her brain said  _hey, that's pretty funny_. Her heart was beating in her throat.

 _Sometimes when my heart is full  
_ _It makes me feel a bit frenetic  
_ _Fallen angel takes the bullet  
_ _Wouldn't that be so poetic  
_ _Isn't there a private angel  
_ _Unremembered, underused  
_ _Second angel  
_ _No one's angel  
_ _Someone God excused  
_

 _Just one angel  
_ _Just one angel  
_ _Angel only I can see  
_ _Just one angel  
_ _Just one angel  
_ _Watching over me_

 _All those days and nights  
_ _God slaved to give us creature comforts  
_ _Why would we have free will  
_ _If he thought we'd always call  
_ _Maybe it's a lack of sleep  
_ _That keeps him feeling vengeful  
_ _Maybe he'd be sweet and soft  
_ _If he could have his Sundays off_

Frances jumped as she felt a touch on her back, and she found she could move again. Kurt had slipped his arm around her shoulder, and she thought,  _Sarah's brother,_ and let herself relax into his half-embrace.

"You okay?" he murmured.

She nodded, not making any noise. Not like she'd be able to, even if she'd wanted to. Puck and Sarah finished the song just as it had begun, quietly, simply.

 _Just one angel  
_ _Just one angel  
_ _Angel only I can see  
_ _Just one angel  
_ _Just one angel  
_ _Watching over me_

Everyone applauded loud for Sarah, and she gave a quick bow before climbing back down off the stage. She landed back in her chair next to Frances with a noisy expelled breath. "Whew. Singing's a lot of freaking work."

Eventually Frances realized everyone around them seemed to be holding back, watching her for her reaction. She swallowed as best as she could, and croaked out, "Sarah, that was..." before her throat stopped working again.

Sarah didn't look at her directly, but as the silence went on, she nodded. "Well, it was my first try. Maybe the next one'll be better?"

Frances had to let that run through her brain a few times before she was able to interpret what Sarah was saying.  _She thinks I don't like it,_  she thought, and then the hold the song had had over her fell away, leaving her able to reach out, grab Sarah's shoulders and hug her hard.

"Whoa," Sarah said, and then hugged her back.

"It was so good," Frances said into her hair. "It was just - so  _good."_

"Yeah?" Sarah sounded relieved, and now she was smiling again. "Okay. Yeah, Noah said so, too, but... it wasn't for  _him,_  you know."

"I know," she whispered. It wasn't like Frances had never gotten a Christmas present before, but all of a sudden it felt like this was the first  _real_  present anyone had ever given her. "I don't even know what to say."

"Say you'll sing something with me," Sarah said. "Come on. I think you owe me one."

There wasn't anything else that could have made Frances climb the stairs to the stage and sit there, clutching a microphone and stumbling through  _O Christmas Tree_ while the words scrolled on the karaoke screen, but she did it. It actually didn't seem to matter to Sarah that she didn't get all the notes right, any more than it mattered that Sarah had trouble keeping up with the words. They both just kept grinning and managed to get through to the end, and everybody applauded for them anyway.  _Maybe with best friends it doesn't matter so much if you make a mistake,_  she thought, as she held Sarah's hand and took a bow.

* * *

**New Years' Day, 2010, 2:16 am**

"Frances? Hey - wake up. You're having a bad dream. Come on."

She was confused. It was dark when she opened her eyes, with no nightlight, and the glow of the clock was in the wrong place, and it was green instead of red. It took about ten seconds of sitting there on the bed, rubbing her eyes, before she figured out where she was.

"Sarah?"

"Here." Sarah's hand was on her arm. In the dim light of the digital clock, Frances could see her white t-shirt with the black lettering (the Lady Gaga periodic table, which had really confused Frances at first, because the names of the elements weren't quite right, but when Sarah pointed out there had to be some changes in order to spell out Ra Ra Ah Ah Ah, Ro Ma Ro Ma Ma, she conceded and even laughed). "You okay?"

Frances shook her head. "I don't... I mean, yeah, I'm okay, it's just..."

"Calm down. Take your time."

Sarah's hand moved to her back, made circles of comfort, and it did feel good. She tried to accept her touch for what it was, but finally she let out an exasperated breath and burst out, "Your brothers, tonight... that  _kiss."_

"Oh." Sarah's hand dropped away. "Did that bother you?"

 _Yes._  "No. It was fine. I mean, I wasn't bothered by the three of them kissing. It was... me." She stared at her hands in her own lap, at her stupid nightgown with the lavender ribbon threaded through the white lace. She wished she'd just worn a t-shirt. "I didn't kiss anybody."

"You said you didn't want to."

Frances nodded. "Yes. I'm used to being home with my family on New Year's. We always kiss at midnight. Usually my mother has to wake me up. But - I wasn't home this year. I'm here, with  _your_  family, and they're great, but..." She squirmed.

"You wanted to be home with your own family?" Sarah asked.

"No. I mean... no. That wasn't it." She picked at the edge of the sheet on the guest bed. "Are you superstitious at all?"

Sarah wasn't thrown by the question, even though it probably seemed off topic. "Not really. I mean, I believe in God, but I don't throw salt over my shoulder or anything. Why?"

"Because you're  _supposed_  to kiss someone on New Year's Eve. You're supposed to, for good luck. And I  _didn't."_  She heard her own voice rising, but she didn't know what to do to stop it. "I didn't, and now it's too late, and... I can't help but think it  _means something."_

"Hey. No." Sarah reached into her lap and picked up one of Frances' hands, holding it tight. Her hand was warm and strong and soft. "It doesn't mean anything."

"Yes, it does," she insisted. Now she sounded frantic. Sarah shushed her, right in her ear, but it didn't feel weird, just comforting. She pressed against Sarah's side. "I was supposed to kiss somebody at midnight, and now... it's too late."

"You get to make mistakes," Sarah said, so calm, so certain.  _How does she do that?_  Frances wondered, not for the first time. "If it doesn't work out the way you wanted, you can always try again. Always. It's never too late."

It was so much like what she'd thought on Christmas at karaoke that Frances wasn't sure why she was having trouble believing what Sarah was saying. Maybe it was because it was two in the morning. "Are you sure?" Sarah's hair tickled her nose, and she rubbed the tip of it against Sarah's shoulder to itch it.

"Believe me, I've been watching my brothers mess up over and over, and every time, they get to go back and try again. If they get to, anybody can." Sarah reached over to the side of the bed and picked up the alarm clock with the green-not-red display. She fiddled with the numbers. When she put it back down, the clock read  _11:59 pm._  "There."

Frances snorted. "Sarah... it's not  _really_  that time."

"It's not really  _anything,_  Frances. We're just making all this up anyway."

Frances had no idea what Sarah meant by that, but she sat there with her on the bed and waited until the display changed to  _12:00 am._

"There. Happy New Year." She had a scant moment to register that Sarah's hair was in her face again, and then Sarah's lips were pressed against hers.  _Warm and strong and soft,_  was Frances' only thought, _just like her hands._

"You feel better now?" Sarah asked.

She mumbled something incoherent, and let Sarah coax her head back down onto the pillow and pull the blankets up over both of them. Even though she was shorter, Sarah curled against her from the outside, and Frances felt her arm tuck around her waist, holding her close against her slim body.

"Go back to sleep now," she murmured. "It's only midnight; we have lots of time before morning."


End file.
